Lunch 6 - Caroline, Keith, Louis and Penny

Tues 16th Aug - dinner at The Castle

Before I report on the above dinner, there waa another in-betweener meal (one which didn't quite fulfil my criteria for one of the 52 lunches) - dinner with Penny at Cibo! - an Italian restaurant in Summertown - Penny had the spaghetti vongole, I had the pasta (can't remember which kind) with meatballs (and I requested, and got, at no extra charge, chillies). I went to ASK in Clerkenwell a number of times and had their excellent spaghetti meatballs with chillies, but when we went recently to the Oxford branch the same dish was very disappointing. Couldn't fault Cibo's though, and I'm sure we'll be back (gained points for leaving the parmesan on the table, lost points for the musak!)

The flat from The Castle

The Castle from the flat

Clerkenwell has an amazing range of high quality restaurants and gastro pubs such as St John, Hix, Smiths, Zetter, Redhook, Bistro du Vin, The Eagle, etc as well as the usual suspects such as Pizza Express, but it's also possible to find a straightforward pub with a straightforward menu, such as The Castle. It's extremely convenient as it's literally across the road from our rented room - and we met up with Caroline and Louis from the top flat, and Keith from the flat across the hall for dinner there. The Castle claims to be the only pub with a pawnbrokers licence - not sure they use it, or need it though, might be interesting to try and pay for your meal with your watch though (might need more than my Swatch!). So, I had a small but excellent lamb shank shepherd's pie and Penny had - well, check the photo, can you guess what it is yet?? I seem to have had several Eton Mess's lately, and this was definitely the best so far - possibly helped by the fact that it included a good slug of Sloe Gin! For what it was I couldn't fault it really - I'm sure we'll be back!

Louis, Caroline, Keith

Penny's dinner...

Background music has the be Love's The Castle - genius (best ending, ending, ending, of any song)

Lunch 5 - Janet and Penny

Wed 10th Aug - Dinner at The Trout

I've decided to be a bit more selective with my criteria for 'lunches' - so I haven't included the 2 meals we had when the neighbours took pity on us (as our kitchen is still being extended and re-fitted): Hilary and John Maddicott had us, and another neighbour (Ian Davey-Wilson), over for dinner (Russian Fish Pie), and later that week Janet Walker cooked up a great Beef Stifado, or when Penny and I went to The Spice Lounge in Summertown, and had our version of Indian tapas (i.e. just lots of starters), or champagne and nibbles at The Champagne bar in Paddington Station with Penny's sons Oli and Nick (Nick heading back to Sydney, after coming over for a couple of days for a a wedding...).

But I think last night, when we took Janet to The Trout for dinner, does count as one of the bona fide lunches.

The Trout is perhaps the most famous of the local pub restuarants - favourite drinking place for Morse, or perhaps favoured by the director of Morse because of the situation, by the river, etc. Penny had the scallops of the day, then a pasta, Janet had crispy duck salad, and I had prawn and avocado salad (although I'm convinced there was no avocado), Pork Milanese (which was a huge pork chop rather than an escalope) and Eton Mess. Nothing specific to complain about, but it seemed to lack a lightness of touch, over-complicated, under-presented, and the chairs were extremely uncomfortable. Perhaps better to do as Morse did, and sit by the river on a sunny evening with a pint.

I was playing the live Levon Helm CD earlier in the day, and this song was still swimming around my brain (doesn't get much better than Levon and John Hiatt!

Lunch 4 - Iain and Max

Fri 22nd July 2001 - Lunch at Aviation House

I still haven't sorted out the terms of reference for this blog.

Should this 'lunch' be included? It was lunch, but I don't have any photos, it wasn't in a restaurant (but neither was 'lunch 3') and it was really a work lunch, rather than a get-together with friends/family to chew the fat over a long meal..

There also the question of the raison d'etre for this blog. Is it for me (as a sort of online diary), a handy way of putting my constantly muddled thoughts on paper, or is it more about food, and a restaurant review blog?

The first few posts seem stilted and formal, I'm still stuck in that scientific way of writing, so perhaps this blog is an attempt to loosen up, to let words flow and not worry about the detail.

Perhaps it doesn't matter, perhaps I'll break any rules I set up anyway..

Interestingly, the meeting with Max and Iain was kind of about breaking rules. Max Parmar is Director of the MRC CTU - sadly not the Counter Terrorist Unit made famous by 24 and Jack Bauer - and Iain Chalmers runs the James Lind Alliance, and we have common interests in the conduct of clinical trials. Guidelines for how to run clinical trials have been developed over the years, but, echoing clinical medicine, some aspects seem to have evolved from the perceived wisdom, and need to be re-visited with a more critical, questioning stance. So we are writing a couple of papers, doing just that. I should be working on them now rather than writing this blog, but...

Just to conform to the pattern of this blog, I can report we had lunch in the canteen at Aviation House, the new home of the CTU, and I had a rather bland omelette and chips...

The soundtrack of this blog, even though it wasn't in my head at the time, has to be something by Amy Winehouse, just because....

How about this: Back to Black - fantastic!

Lunch 3 - Carys, George and Penny

19th July 2011 - Lunch at Manton Cottage

George is Penny's cousin, currently Head Master at the International School in San Salvador, and back in the UK for a couple of weeks with Carys, seeing family and being reminded of the English summer!

They were staying in Manton Cottage, and we drove over for lunch and a tour of Rutland Water. Cary's lunch, with a nod towards Jamie magazine (the boy is omnipresent!), of Spanish Omelette, and a rocket, parma ham, goats cheese, olive salad was followed by strawberries and cream (and blueberries and ice cream) - what could be better!

Lunchtime talk was about retirement, facebook, google+, pasta (check out their son Mark's Carrasco Pasta blog!) but mainly about on-line learning (the fact that you can't simply transfer a taught course to an online course) as well as itunes-u  and sloan-c. But inevitably, we came around to the topic of the week, which was the importance of interdisciplinary interactions, and how you might design on-line teaching modules (which may be used by various disciplines) to feedback comments, solutions, ways of working etc, across the board.

But as the storm clouds gathered we did a tour of Rutland Water, driving to a number of points to see nature reserves, bird watching sites, water sports facilities, as well of course, as tea rooms...

The soundtrack to this outing, I think had to be Lord Rockingham's XI 'Hoots Mon' as Rockingham, Rockingham Castle, and the Rockingham Motor Speedway are just down the road...

Lunch 2 - Luke, Nina and Penny

Sun 17th July 2011 - Dinner at the Bell, Hampton Poyle

When I worked at the MRC I always made a point of attending the weekly seminars, because, no matter who the speaker was, or how tangential the subject was to my own work, there were always nuggets of information, and glimpses of overlapping interests.

This awareness of the potential for learning from other disciplines led us to the RSM Medical Innovations Summit where 12 speakers from all branches of medical sciences gave short presentations of their innovative work (it was probably the talk about the bionic cat that convinced us to go!). Luke Alphey talked abut his work genetically modifying mosquitos to combat dengue fever, and Nina Alphey (a mathematical ecologist) asked one of the speakers about sharing ideas across disciplines, which led me to seek her out at the next break, as she clearly was one of those rare people who consider the bigger picture. We quickly learned that they live about a quarter of a mile from us here in Kidlington!

One of the great things about living here is that the open countryside is virtually on our doorsteps, and we planned to take the 20 minute walk to the next village, Hampton Poyle, and The Bell restaurant, for dinner. However, the rainy season (aka summer) arrived, and we wimped out and drove.

The wine menu seemed sparse and focussed, but the food menu was extensive and dense, and included the 'Gentlemans lunch' and the 'Ladies lunch' (which were not only sexist but importantly left out the apostrophes!!) and several ingredients were oddly capitalised: 'pepperoni, mushroom, tomato and Mozzarella pizza'?? We also had to look up daikon, which turns out to be Asian white radish, and Arbequina olive oil. A rule of thumb is that the length of the menu is inversely proportional to the quality of the food, but actually the food was excellent. The pork belly was the best I have had (thin crispy skin, hardly any fat) but was partially chosen as it included 'gooseberry jus' - I have been predicting for some time now that gooseberries will be the next cranberry, and if anyone knows how I can invest in gooseberries, please get in touch! The chocolate pot was rated 9/10 by Nina, although both the Eton Mess and Summer Pudding had too high a proportion of cream, and Penny felt that the Crab Linguini failed to approach the current gold standard for this dish, as served up in The Lord Nelson Brewery Hotel in Sydney! 

Penny

Luke and Nina

We talked mainly work: mosquitos, mesothelioma, modelling, the media, and probably other things beginning with m that I've forgotten! But the recurring theme was how to break down the communication barriers between disciplines.

PS the loos were rather fine (see photo) especially L'Occitane liquid soap!

PPS worth checking out Dengue Fever the 'World's Premier Cambodian Psychedelic Rock Band'

PPPS all the cars in the Bell's car park were silver, grey or black - why have car colours gone so conservative? Answers on a postcard please!

Lunch 1 - Akos, Mark and Penny

Tues 21st June - Brunch at Carluccios, Smithfield

This is a bit of a cheat, as this meal took place before I set up this blog, but as it was the catalyst for it, it seemed logical to include it.


Penny and I met Akos and Mark in Goa - we were staying at the Vivenda dos Palhacos which is a fab guest house (with only 7 bedrooms) run by brother and sister Simon and Charlotte Hayward, though sadly we didn't meet them as their father was ill and subsequently died back in England. However, the rest of the staff looked after us wonderfully.

One of the great things about the Vivenda was that everyone ate breakfast (and usually dinner) together, so we made friends with everyone there, shared experiences, and went out on trips together, etc. Apart from Akos and Mark, there were also Eric and Paddy, Eric and Lois, and the wonderfully named Tigger Stack Ramsay-Brown and her friend Rupi (but more of them all later I suspect).

Mark and Akos

Akos and Mark were over from Dussledorf to see a gig by Kathy Griffin (who I didn't like to admit I hadn't heard of), and we met for a late breakfast at Carluccios in Smithfield. Can't recall what everyone ate (well, it is 3 weeks ago!) but I know I had the Eggs Florentine! Eggs Florentine has spinach, Eggs Benedict substitutes ham or bacon for the spinach, and Eggs Mornay uses, surprise, surprise, Mornay sauce (which is a cheese sauce) rather than Hollandaise. But it's the Hollandaise that's the clincher. Hollandaise sauce is just egg yolks, lemon juice, vinegar, butter, salt and pepper - click for Delia's recipe - but Carluccio's version was just not tart enough!

Akos and Penny

We discussed blogs I recall - and in trying to persuade Mark to start one beginning with his treatise comparing the quality of motorways in different European countries - it has somehow ended up with me starting this one - la di da (as Elaine from Seinfeld was wont to say...)


PS the soundtrack to this meal should have been 'Aint goin to Goa' by Alabama 3