Dom Pannell's Blog

Apologies if I trashed your comment

I just found the 'obliterate all junk comments' button and couldn't resist hitting it, destroying over 8700 spam comments (yay!).

Unfortunately, I know that a few weeks ago I accidentally consigned a few genuine comments to the junk folder. I did make an effort to go and rescue a half dozen or so of these, but eventually I reached a point where I couldn't face scrolling through any more adverts for viagra, cialis or penis enlargements (I know, I know, that wasn't spam, that was targetted marketing) and just hit that button.

This blog feels so clean now!

Back to the Anchor & Hope for a(nother) wonderful Sunday lunch

I thoroughly enjoyed Sunday lunch with my chums Cathryn, Aboodi and the newly-wed Leanne and Craig (Verity was supposed to be there too, but bailed at the last minute - boo!). Always the considerate one, Cathryn had gone to the trouble of booking at the Anchor and Hope, my favourite local eatery, which is but a short waddle from my flat.

The menu said:
Leek and crab vinaigrette

Lemon pudding

It turns out that 'grass' was an unusual affair comprising shredded lettuce, mint and vinegar that counteracted the meat and potatoes extremely well. All courses received glowing praise as they were gobbled up. Aboodi summed it up best when he described our feast as "splendid food, with none of that nonsense about small portions." Indeed, they even came round with second helpings of succulent beef.

They gave us nibbles beforehand - deep-fried balls of mushroom, beef and herbs in batter; ever-so-sweet cherry tomatoes and delicious parma ham - and Cathryn, having arrived first, had cleverly ordered a bottle of Txacoli (which I described here) to which we added a bottle of Douro, Monbazillac, coffee and glasses of Bas Armagnac VSOP.

Despite rave reviews from established restaurant critics like Jay Rayner and having won the 2004 Gastro Pub of the Year in the ITV London Restaurant Awards, I'm always amazed to read review sites with comments by diners who didn't enjoy their visit to A&H.

Generally the griping relates to the no-booking policy (doesn't apply on Sunday), the attitude of the staff (described as wonderful by one of our number today - the others heartily agreed) and, most bizarrely, the quality of the cooking (always very good to excellent on the dozen or so times I've eaten there). Cathryn and I reckon it's actually a cunning ploy by regulars who don't want to compete for tables with 'foreigners' from north of the river.

Right, I've already had a post-prandial nap. I think perhaps I ought to go for a brisk walk now!

Talking of Jay Rayner, he was on hilariously acidic form in today's Observer Magazine where he reviewed Suka, "a new hipper-than-thou joint in London's Sanderson Hotel", whose 'concept' he describes as 'We are now going to extort as much money from you in as short a period as possible for as lacklustre a meal as we can get away with.'

Ouch!

Kawasaki does it again

He hardly needs promoting as his blog has consistently been one of the world's most widely read since its launch a couple of years ago (if memory serves me right), but Guy* Kawasaki keeps coming up with great content.

This time he gives tips on the Art of Avoiding an Asshole Boss. Having once worked for The Boss from Hell (I'm just about over it, six years on) this subject is close to my heart. Kawasaki doesn't go on a rant, which I tend to do if I talk about crap, bullying employers, but calmly sets out symptoms and solutions. It's good, practical stuff.

His post also drew my attention to the LinkedIn Reference Search tool (www.linkedin.com/rs). I'm a fan of LinkedIn. I choose to pay to be a premium member (well, my lovely current employer pays for me) and I get a lot out of it in terms of keeping in touch and contacting new people. I'm pleased to see Reid Hoffman and his gang finding innovative ways of mining the data that is held on the site.

I just tried a Reference Search on The Boss from Hell and found 146 people who could potentially tell someone what it's like to work for him. Narrowing it down to people who worked in the same office, I found five people. Knowing all of those people, I'm sure that if asked they would give an honest and not-too-flattering appraisal of TBfH (he has been promoted into a different company in the same industry). If only the tool existed six years ago!

*EDIT: corrected, thanks Graham /EDIT

Two hours of slaving for your edification

Lydia has been busy. She's been hard at work for our benefit.

She has created this lovely origami crane for us all to enjoy

and because she believes in Winning by Sharing™, she's taken pictures of the 22 steps involved in building the crane. And she's posted them for us.

The cost of this artistic philanthropy?

About two hours apparently, give or take a minute or two.

Thanks Lyds.

;-)

KFC in the Valley vs. KFC in South London

Carter has posted a topical thread, given that KFC in South London and its many, many variants was the topic of a very amusing conversation I had with some friends last night. Reading what Carter has to say, it seems that the situation in Silicon Valley is very different from over here.

Carter says there are only three KFCs in the Valley. There are certainly many, many more in this part of town. Unfortunately, KFC doesn’t have a restaurant finder for the UK, so there is no way for me to verify the true number but it’s a lot more than three for South London. Hell, it’s a lot more than three for the SE postcode.

It’s not just KFC either. Fried chicken is popular down here – there’s Chicken Shack, Chicken Cottage, Dallas Chicken, Dixie Chicken (not to be mixed up with Dixy Chicken), Tasty Chicken Perfect Chicken, Chicken Express, Chicken Spot, Chicken Land, Chicken Hut, Planet Chicken, Lickin Chicken… the list goes on and on AND THAT’S BEFORE WE COME TO THE BLATANT KFC RIPOFFS!!

The subject of yesterday’s conversation was the hilarity of some of the names of these fried chicken joints: there’s Morley’s Fried Chicken (MFC)

Tennessee Fried Chicken (TFC)

Dallas Chicken (RFC)

And spotted in Balham last night – sadly no photo yet – SFC… judging from its looks, the S stands for Salmonella.

I noticed the proliferation of fried chicken restaurants a few years ago and, like Carter, resolved to try one. In order to do the genre justice, I decided to visit the market leader and picked a KFC close to Clapham Junction. To this day I haven’t stopped apologising to the two friends, Mariagrazia (Mg) and Dip, who accompanied me.

We shared a bucket of boneless bites, some fries and a couple of Cokes.

The amount of meat of any quality in the bites was miniscule, so the only taste was that of the fat in which the crunchy brown morsels had been cooked. As the fries had been cooked in the same fat, that’s my resounding memory – fat. The only pleasant part of the experience was the Coke, which cut through the grease and provided a necessary counterbalance to the solid part of the meal.

The only thing that comes close to my KFC experience is when a Danish chap and I ordered a full ‘ración’ of pigs ears in Madrid (the difference being that I enjoyed the first couple of ears).

It’s hard to explain the feeling of liquid fat as it runs around one’s mouth, let’s just say that it’s not something I plan to make a habit of. To make things worse, as we trudged unhappily up Falcon Road (luckily we were heading to a comedy club, so the night did pick up) Mg pointed out that the smell of fat was lingering in our clothes…

Call me a spoilsport, but there are plenty of other establishments I want to try in the Silicon Valley area. KFC is not one of them.

More on San Sebastian (the grub)

I signed up for a Spanish language course at the Lacunza school (part of International House, which is as good a quality stamp as you’ll find in language learning/training). The course was good value for money and perfect for what I was after: an opportunity to jump back into Spanish and find out the scale of the task of getting back to some level of fluency. As I said previously, I have something of a mountain to climb.

I also took along the 5-hour ‘Michel Thomas Advanced Spanish Course’ on CD, which I listened to in my hotel room through the week and bought a grammar exercise book. I plan to discuss language learning tools on a separate thread, but between them, these two allowed me to while away siesta time which was between my classes in the mornings and the bars re-opening in the late afternoon.

On the subject of bars, I probably experienced a good twenty or so over the course of the week. Most were very good, a few were excellent and only one was disappointing enough for me not to want to return.

The greatest single feature of bars in the Spanish Basque Country and in particular San Sebastian are the seemingly omnipresent “pintxos.” Like Spanish ‘tapas’, these are intended as bar snacks to be consumed with a glass of wine or beer. A pintxo can be as simple as a small sandwich containing ‘jamon serrano’ or tortilla, but tends to be much more elaborate. Even quite small establishments will often have an impressive array of different pintxos laid out on the bar.

On my first visit to San Sebastian, I didn’t know anything about pintxos or what correct Basque etiquette was when it came to eating them – as a result, my then girlfriend and I ended up wandering round several bars under the mistaken impression that lots of private parties were about to start because of all the buffets that were waiting to be consumed. Thankfully we stumbled on Bar Sebastopol where the owner (who I now know is called Angel or Angelito to his friends) took the time to explain.

If a customer likes the look of something, he or she just has to take it, tuck in and pay when it comes to settling up before leaving. Obviously, if the dish needs a plate or could do with warming up, it makes sense to ask the barman for some help, but generally you’re free to scoff away and pay at the end.

Angel’s place, Bar Sebastopol on Calle San Martin, is a little way off the promenade that runs round ‘Bahía de la Concha’ (one of the city’s three bays), it is an unprepossessing place that is popular with locals from before 9am to 2am at night (might be even longer hours, but I wasn’t around to find out).

This is a pic of la Bahía de la Concha on a grey day looking north-west.

Bar Sebastopol is actually a very good place for pintxos – One evening I counted fourteen different pintxos of which I sampled four. Normally I wouldn’t be so greedy* but I was chatting to Angel and a couple of customers who insisted I tried certain delicacies. Consequently, I tried two types of anchovy pintxo – one cold comprising olives, anchovy fillets and green beans on a slice of bread, the other made of potatoes and anchovies fried in golden batter – as well as fried salt cod and a small dish of pickled octopus. All of that was washed down with a glass or two of Txakoli, which is a local slightly sparkling dry white wine that apparently needs pouring from a great height.

Delicious.

I enjoyed the whole pintxos experience so much I only had one sit-down meal in a ‘proper’ restaurant all week and that was in Bilbao airport as I waited for my plane home. I’m glad I did though, because I’ve finally tried ‘bacalao al pil-pil’ – a dish I’ve always wondered about. I’ve seen it translated variously as ‘codfish in a piquant sauce’ and (I love this) ‘cod in an emulsion of olive oil’. Having now eaten it, I’ve got to say that the latter translation, although not exactly attractive, is the more accurate. Despite that description, or perhaps because of it, my bacalao al pil-pil which I had with (even) more Txacoli was gorgeous – wonderfully firm meat covered with a yellowy-green olive oil sauce.

Here is my dish in all its glory:

*Haha, the trick is to have a pintxo and a glass of beer/wine in one bar, then wander off to the next – that way you can be as greedy as you like and only you will know. Besides, think of all those calories you’re burning off as you walk…