Category: Eating Out

The Art of Lee Miller followed by Dinner at Cambio de Tercio, Z/Yen Staff Christmas Event, 14 December 2007

Ian and Janie

The above picture, from Cambio de Tercio, is possibly the last photo taken of me before I grew my beard over that Christmas break. I suspect I should be “crediting” Monique for it, or possibly Jez given the proximity of the photographer to Sarah.

Earlier in the evening we had all enjoyed a cultural time at the V&A. Most people followed Linda’s lead to The Golden Age of Couture, but I was keen to see photography instead; The Art of Lee Miller. I think Janie had already seen the couture, so some folk joined us for the photographic exhibition.

Cambio de Tercio is a fine restaurant and we indeed had a very fine meal there.

The song that year was, ♬Santa’s Using PropheZy At Z/Yen♬ to the tune of Santa Claus is Coming To town:

SANTA’S USING PROPHEZY AT Z/YEN
(Sung to the tune of “Santa Claus is Coming To Town”)
He’s made an edict!
He needs to know why!
He’s out to predict,
He will classify;Santa Claus Is Coming To Z/Yen,
PropheZy has done it again,
Santa’s using PropheZy at Z/Yen!Santa’s making a list,
He’s checking it twice,
His model works out
Who’s naughty and nice.

Santa Claus Is Coming To Z/Yen,
PropheZy has done it again,
Santa’s using PropheZy at Z/Yen!

He predicts when you’re not sleeping,
He predicts when you’re serene,
He computes if you’ve been bad or good,
In Support Vector Machine!

A Santa index,
A Santa Claus game,
A Santa benchmark,
The answer’s the same;

IndeZy is coming to Z/Yen,
ExtZy is coming to Z/Yen,
PropheZy is coming to Z/Yen.

The boys and girls in Z/Yen-land,
Want to know the reason why,
Each name has got to start or end,
With a Z and then a Y.

They’re eaZy to use,
They’re peaZy to play,
No sleaZy abuse,
When done the Z/Yen way;

IndeZy is coming to Z/Yen,
ExtZy is coming to Z/Yen,

Here’s Bruce Springsteen’s version of Santa Claus Is Coming To Town:

I seem to recall that a very good time was had by all that evening.

Dinner With John White At The Chancery, Preceded By A Drink In The Cittie Of York, 26 November 2007

This evening did what it said on the tin, I should imagine. It was my turn to pay and John I think felt at that stage of the season that we both needed to be fairly close to work and to routes home – hence the location choice.

I reported it very briefly in e-mail form afterwards as:

great to see you last night

While John’s report back included a caveat…

Lovely evening on Monday but sadly I had to catch a bus from Bishops Stortford due to engineering works. Commuter troubles. A late night in the end. Must learn for next time.

Ouch.

Both venues are still there at the time of writing (January 2019) I think:

Trip Advisor on Cittie of York

Trip Advisor on the Chancery

But I don’t recall The Chancery looking like that – have they changed the frontage or even moved since our visit.

Perhaps John knows and/or remembers what we ate.

Dinner With Charlotte At The Ealing Park Tavern, Then The Glass House Kew, 14 July 2007 & 7 September 2007, not 4 August 2007

Charlotte (Charlie) went through a small phase that summer of staying with us overnight Saturday to Sunday and we’d take her out to dinner.

The first of the two that summer was an excellent gastro pub, the Ealing Park Tavern.

Still well regarded at the time of writing – click here for a link to reviews.

The second was at the Glass House Kew.  Trendy and very good food if I remember correctly.  Click here for reviews.

I originally thought the second evening was 4 August, but we needed to postpone that one due to my dad’s indisposition, so we rescheduled for 7 September.

The weekend before that, 1 September, Anthea and Mitchell came over to to Sandall Close for dinner.

Thems was very pleasant evenings, thems was.

 

Dinner With Mum, Dad and Janie at Lamberts, Balham, 29 June 2007

8504679068_bbe0de7c6e_z

A painful memory, this one. Not for the dinner itself, which was a culinary and social success, celebrating Janie’s birthday.

Painful, because we now know that dad only had a few weeks to live. There were just a couple of clues on the  night.

Dad was just shy of 88 and was finding it harder to get in and out of the car without help, but on this occasion he needed a lot of help; far more than he had needed before.

The other clue was that dad didn’t finish his meal. He said the food was very good but that he didn’t have the appetite for any more than he had eaten. This was a very unusual thing for dad to do/say, but we thought little of it at the time.

In fact, dad was riddled with cancer by then. In early August, when he collapsed and we were given the news that he was in such a bad way, the specialist couldn’t believe that he had been more-or-less symptom free until five weeks before he collapsed.

There are a few other photos from the evening including the one above – click here if you want to see them. 

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.

Flaming & Diving Up West, 29 & 31 May 2001

Jim Thompson’s On Kings Road, Now Defunct, Picture From allinlondon.co.uk

Diary says that we went out quite a bit midweek that week.

Tuesday 29 May – dinner at Jim Thompson’s at 617 King’s Road. A Thai brasserie type place. With Kim, Micky, Anthea and Mitchell. I think we were far more impressed with our company than we were with the place, which was crowded and noisy.

Thursday 31 May – Marie Logan’s leaving do (from Z/Yen) at The Dive in James Street. Another crowded place, if I remember correctly.

Yogi Berra famously said (although almost certainly did not originate the quip):

“Nobody ever goes there anymore — it’s too crowded.”

That quip certainly seems to have applied to both of these venues, which both closed down not long after our May 2001 visits.

Oh well.

Dinner In Chelsea, At Zaika, With Kim & Micky, 27 March 2001

Chef Vineet Bhatia by Ronbhat24, CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons

We didn’t often go to seriously fashionable restaurants with Kim & Micky. Kim is vegetarian and tends to order “plain” more or less wherever we go. But Kim is partial to Indian food and this Chelsea place, under big name chef Vineet Bhatia, was making media waves by gaining a Michelin Star.

Just imagine – an Indian restaurant with a Michelin Star! Well, in 2001, it was unusual – indeed I think a first.

In those days Zaika was in Chelsea – so all those readers who are screaming at their screens that Kensington and Chelsea are not the same place…stop screaming. Zaika moved to Kensington a year or so after our visit.

This was, actually, a very memorable meal and memorable evening. The food was exceptionally good, as was the ambiance and everything about the experience.

All four of us were on good form. Whether that was down to Vineet’s skills or not I cannot say. We could all four be on good form without eating at a place of Zaika’s quality.

Here’s a review of the place from the Observer a few weeks before our visit. Reading it has made me feel hungry!

Zaika Flett Observer Zaika Flett Observer 11 Feb 2001 The Observer (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com

Dinner With John White At Cigala, Preceded By Lunch & Games With Prince Charles & The Marine Stewardship Council At St James’s Palace, 14 March 2001

I needed to do some electronic archaeology to ascertain that John White & I ate at Cigala that night. But I do remember the evening and the restaurant well. A great meal and, at that time, a rare opportunity to meet up.

Work was at full pelt at that time for both of us, plus John was up to his elbows in little ones. Here’s a quote from our e-mail exchange arranging this one:

We must get something in the diary. Call me at the office. Here all day Friday. Home is usually not good because I am either in the middle of cooking, eating or controlling children. When you rang on Monday I was literally up to my elbows in vomit. Joy. Don’t ever have children.

Cigala was a new opening at that time and had been getting rave reviews. Here’s Jay Rayner, for example.

Cigala Jay Rayner Observer Cigala Jay Rayner Observer 25 Feb 2001 The Observer (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com

John chose Cigala – I paid for it.

I ate “well posh” all day that day. I had spent the morning running a Fishy Bourse game at St James’s Palace for delegates at a Marine Stewardship Council event. I got Prince Charles to hand out fluffy fish in the prize-giving, which I thought was pretty cool and His Royal Highness didn’t seem to mind.

MSC At St James's Palace MSC At St James’s Palace 15 Mar 2001 The Daily Telegraph (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com

The Daily Telegraph was strangely silent about the fluffy fish.

Lunch included the Forestry Stewardship Council (FSC) as well as the MSC (coincidentally, John White was soon to move on to the timber trade and encounter FSC certification a lot).

Fortunately for we guests, the St James’s Palace chefs cooked MSC product rather than FSC product. Even more fortunately, at that time, Western Australian rock lobster was one of the few species MSC certified, so that’s what we ate. It was delicious. I mean, someone has to eat that sort of thing.

I subsequently discovered that my mum called Linda at our office several times to ask for more copies of the photograph below – she must have sent the darned thing to everyone she knew…and maybe even some people she didn’t know.

Oh mum!

Prince Charles, John Gummer and me, with the fluffy fish cunningly hidden about my person