Dom Pannell's Blog

Looking for Christmas presents?

Look no further!

The deluxe Carnivorous Creations kit lets you grow all of your favourite meat-eating plants.

What more can one ask for than a set of silent companions with which to share the joys of steak tartare in one's own home?

Thanks to Cathy at Red Door Consulting for that one.

Another Saturday, another afternoon in the pub 3.0

Ouch, that was pretty horrid. Not only did England lose to the South African second XV (they left 12 of their best players at home on this tour), the Welsh were demolished by New Zealand even though they hardly made any mistakes all afternoon - maybe they should have let them perform the haka on the pitch.

The Irish aren't playing New Zealand on this tour, so they can carry on believing that they have a chance of beating the All Blacks in next year's world cup (that seems to be the consensus in my local Irish pub). In all honesty, though, the Kiwis are currently playing at a standard that is on another level to any other team. In the past I felt they relied too heavily on one or two stars, albeit supported by a better than average team. This time round, they're fielding fifteen stars and, by all accounts, have thirty or more who are equally good in reserve.

History shows that New Zealand have a habit of peaking too early, whereas other teams like England the current world champions have managed to find form in time for the big occasion. We've all got a lot of catching up to do this time round though.

Well done the Irish

They were pouring a lot of Guinness in my local pub, The Crown and Cushion this afternoon when Ireland achieved a superb 21-6 victory over Australia.

No doubt that the best team won - the Wallabies weren't allowed to get into the game and the Irish gave us all a lesson in breaking tackles.

The race for next year's World Cup is hotting up, although we've still got the Six Nations to go before that... the smart money is on Ireland or Wales to win the European championship; to date there's still noone to challenge the Kiwis for the big prize.

Restaurant Hopping in the San Francisco Bay Area

I've been catching up on RSS feeds this morning and I noticed that Carter Lusher has posted several more suggestions for restaurant hopping. Carter sent me a spreadsheet of suggestions when I asked him to recommend places to eat in San Francisco a couple of months back and consequently I tried hopping around The Ferry Building.

Now I've got even more reasons to pull my socks up and get back over to the US west coast.

Actually, I should tip my hat to Carter - his food notebook is clearly a labour of love, with regular, well-written, mouth-watering articles about where he has eaten, or cooking techniques he has tried, all in the name of the Dining with Notebook Manifesto.

I just wish I were as dedicated!

Pig's head

My Kiwi friend Cathryn made the trek south of the river to watch New Zealand beat the French by 23 points to 11 yesterday evening. The match wasn't as one-sided as last week when the All Blacks demolished their opponents by 47 points to 3, but the best team won with a minimal amount of cheating - French player Elissalde might want to watch the video replay to identify the Kiwi who downed him with a punch to the jaw off the ball just before he was replaced by Yachvili, and there was definitely stuff going on in the scrum, but that's to be expected.

Anyway, as a sort of celebration, after the match had finished, we headed off to the Anchor and Hope for a late snack.

Cathryn ordered acorn-fed ham with salsify, trevisse and quince (trevisse is a bitter red leaf - I asked the waitress) while I plumped for pigs head and gribiche with a side of lentils. Hey! Who would turn down the chance to try pig's head when it's on the menu?

We finished up with a muscat caramel custard.

Once again it was all delicious. It always is at the A&H, just as the atmosphere is always relaxed and the staff friendly and knowledgeable about the food they are serving.

The pig's head, by the way, came in the form of battered, deep-fried cubes of pulled meat and looked as appetising as it tasted - very good and very 'porky'... just as well, I guess.

No more Dragon Sausages

I've been following a news story over the past couple of days.

A Welsh company has been selling sausages under the brand of 'Dragon Sausages' for several years - fair enough, given that a dragon is one of the symbols of Wales, right?

Wrong. Powys County Council's Trading Standards Department has decided that the name does not explain the ingredients sufficiently clearly, so they have insisted that the company, Black Mountains Smokery, must include the word 'pork' in the name. Thus severely damaging their marketing strategy.

I note that the ingredients already contained the word 'pork'.

Apparently, Powys County Council ran a full analysis proving that the sausages don't contain any of these fictitious animals:

They're now claiming that vegetarians might be confused.

Sometimes I wonder if Britain is going mad.

There's more on this story here.

Another Saturday, another afternoon in the pub 2.0

Hmm... I seem to have been here before.

14:30 England vs. South Africa - come on England, you can't really lose EIGHT in a row, can you? The Springboks have stated that they're planning to bully Charlie Hodgson off the field. Let's see if Sheridan, Chuter and the rest of the pack can protect him sufficiently for him to get his kicking back to form.

I must say, I'm not holding out much hope.

Australia gave Great Britain a drubbing in the rugby league earlier today... doesn't bode well.

[EDIT] Hooray! England won... just. The final score at Twickenham was 23:21. There was a collective sigh of relief in my local pub when the final whistle was blown. Our players need to work on many aspects of their game, however, especially their kicking! [/EDIT[

Another Saturday, another afternoon in the pub

Following England's trouncing by New Zealand last week, both teams are in action again today.

14:30 England vs. Argentina - come on England, you can't really lose seven in a row, can you? The Pumas are up for it though.

17:00 Ireland vs. South Africa - O'Driscoll and his team should (I said should) have no problem seeing off the Springboks, most of whose best players have stayed back home.

20:00 France vs. New Zealand - can the utterly brilliant, outrageous cheats that are the Les Bleus defeat the utterly brilliant, outrageous cheats that are the All Blacks? I make a point of never supporting the French in rugby, but I love it when anybody beats the Kiwis (otherwise they'd dominate the sport, for heaven's sakes!). My loyalties are split for this battle between two teams that are currently vying to be the best in the world. It should be a cracking match - I hope that both teams produce moments of dazzling brilliance in between the inevitable rule-breaking and dastardly gamesmanship.

After a cracker against Australia last week, the Welsh are up for a tough afternoon playing the Pacific Islanders in their first match on European soil. Big chaps those Islanders - at least the weather (cold and wet) will play to the Dragons' advantage. I'd hope that Scotland should beat Romania.

[EDIT] Ouch! Well done Argentina, the best team won... England have the honour of equalling their record for seven consecutlve losses... on this form, they'll set a new record next week when they take on South Africa.

Well done Wales, congratulations Scotland. [/EDIT]

It's been two years and four days

It's been two years and four days since I started writing at dompannell.com and it's been two years and two days since I sat down with a bottle of wine and wrote about my annoyance with US policy in Iraq.

I wouldn't bring it up again (hey, I'm sober for a start!) but earlier today Saddam Hussein was found guilty and sentenced to death by hanging. There is talk of insurgency as a reaction to the decision.

I've lost count of the number of times I've heard the situation in Iraq described as 'catastrophic' or similar. It seems to have been completely mishandled by governments (US/UK) that didn't plan for the power vacuum that followed the invasion and subsequent capture of Saddam. When I listen to the news in the morning, it seems there is always a story about another massive explosion killing people who are just trying to live their lives over there.

It's Guy Fawkes Night here in the UK and there are explosions here too, outside my window as local kids play with fireworks. I hope that's the only sort of explosion that Londoners have to listen to this year.

Lunch at the Anchor & Hope

The Anchor and Hope on The Cut is a short jaunt from my flat. It's my favourite local restaurant. What am I talking about, it's just about my favourite restaurant - I go there with friends and some of them like it enough to write about the experience. Actually, it's not a restaurant, it's a 'gastropub' but that term sounds pretentious, which is something A&H isn't.

I've eaten there on about a dozen occasions and each time the food has been sensational.

Today was no exception.

Sunday is the only day they'll take a booking (for some reason it annoys people that they have to turn up in person to make a reservation during the week, but I've never had a problem with waiting in a lively, fun pub) so I popped in last night and booked a table for myself and three of my colleagues who wanted to see if A&H is up to my eulogising about the fixed price set Sunday lunches.

They have a rule that Sunday lunch is served on the stroke of 2pm, but they're far too relaxed to insist on it... besides, it's Sunday! The final member of our party rocked up nearly 40 minutes late and nobody batted an eyelid - they just kept serving us beer while we waited and gave us a plate of 'amuse-bouches' comprising smoked herring with pickled beetroot and a farmhouse pate with celeriac, both served on toast.

When we were all there, lunch kicked off. Gem squash filled with melted Italian hard cheese went down very well before the main dish, roast pork with a variety of root vegetables (and was that pear? Whatever, it went very well with the pork!) turned up. We washed it down with a bottle of Italian nebbiolo and a jug of tap water (no attempt to make us pay for mineral water). There were no complaints from our table and much praise for the tenderness and taste of the meat.

Dessert was a 'little chocolate pot' that came with a side helping of vanilla ice-cream - very rich and very delicious.

I've read reviews of A&H that complain about the staff. The odd thing is that in all the times I've eaten there, I've only ever been waited on by people who are knowledgable about the food they are serving, are eager to please and who smile a lot. A winning combination in my book.

So there you have it. Good food, decent prices, excellent staff... and for those that must have it, you can book for Sunday lunch.

Shame the English rugby team were stuffed by the All Blacks. Hey ho! We're still the world champions until next year.

Australia 12 Great Britain 23

Oh, alright, I'm not going to claim to be a huge fan of rugby league, but I do think the GB team deserve a huge slap on their collective back for coming from behind to beat the Australians in Sydney today (or yesterday depending on how you view time zones). All the more so as it seems from several accounts that I have read that the Ozzies tried to win by cheating outrageously and violently.

I'm not sure if it will have any impact on this weekend's two international rugby union fixtures, which are likely to end in defeat for the Brits: England take on the world's best team New Zealand tomorrow and I'm off right now to the pub to watch Wales take on Australia.

Come on Wales!

[EDIT:] The first ever draw between the two countries was a tremendous match. 29 points apiece and Wales look as though they could be a contender in the 6 Nations next year and, who knows, maybe the Rugby World Cup? [/EDIT]

MT Version 3.33

Hooray!

This blog has had an upgrade to MovableType Version 3.33. It has a lovely interface (much like WordPress) and it looks much easier to use. It even seems to work properly in Firefox.

I might blog a bit more often now.

Thanks Paul.