NEWS: Eau de Stilton

Only sometimes, and you know it...

Simple fact: I couldn't afford the top restaurants. Paying 70 pounds (about $150) for 2 with a bottle of wine but no entry and no dessert is the highest I would go, because this is the only level of extortion I could stand. Some people are rich in London, good for them. I remember that any restaurant recommended in newspapers dining guides would come to a bill of at least 100 pounds for two. That's insane but considered "value for money" in England...

Of course, the best restaurants are in London. If I were a top chef I would also go work there, since I'd make ridiculous amounts of money that I wouldn't make anywhere else...

And finally, I still have problems calling Indian cuisine "English cuisine". Curry is not an English dish... In France, all food from the former colonies is not called French food, since it doesn't have its origins there. I concede that's all rhetorics, but it might give perspective to people who've never been to the UK

I feel your fustration at that, but there are some top places to eat proper English food without getting practically mugged.

Often I find that they're the slightly more upmarket pubs. It's just a case of stumbling into the right one at lunchtime.

You know, if I never had to smell Tommy cologne, or any of its variants and mock-ups, I'd probably be happy with it. Maybe adolescent boys would be less likely to douse themselves in as much Eau de Stinky-Ass Cheese than they currently do in Tommy-type whatnot. Or Axe, for fuck's sake.

Fucking Axe. O Stilton, come save us from the Axe!

[Edited on May 15, 2006 1:18PM]

Fair cop, I was trying to get a rise.

Jeff, how long have you been away from here. I have never spent more than about £30 a head for a good meal here, and nor would I, unless it was a ramsey restaurant or something which in France would cost you an arm and a leg too. I'm not saying it cheap. But if you wander out of central London where price is mostly dictated by staggering rents then you very rarely pay over £70 for a full two to three course meal with wine. As for the newspapers recomendations, I looked at the last two latest listings and they both fall short of your estimates. £100, fuck , you can get a meal at Claridge's for little more than that.

here

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[Edited on May 15, 2006 by TheNonStopDancer]

To be fair, I have to admit that getting a good bottle of wine was the most expensive part. In comparison, French or Italian imported wine is 40 to 50% cheaper in US restaurants.

As you say, I don't doubt that there are nice places to be found away from central London; I knew a few, luckily. But when you want to go out with your date & already live in zone 5, you don't want to go eat somewhere at the other side of town in zone 3 or 4... you also go central to meet up with friends, watch a movie, whatever & then you end up having to look for a place to eat not too far away and the prices are awful.

Regarding the guides, I was referring mainly to the Metro/Evening Standard. I read this paper daily to kill time while going to work and consistently saw chronicles of over-priced new restaurants. Never checked the Guardian for food (agreed, probably would have been a good idea), mostly because I was sticking to the 3 or 4 restaurants I liked by then.

I agree , its a shite state of affairs, but its a shitty tax issue more than anything else. US taxes about 21c a bottle, the UK 20% +.

Brick lane and shoritch,hoxten, london bridge, fulham road, notting hill, Butlers wharf, southbank... there are loads of zone one and two areas where you can find good food. By god Borough market has a cornucopia of fine dinning experiences around it, all really resonable and one tube stop from waterloo. I'll take you out to a few if you ever make it back. Deal is you pay if the bill falls below £50 with wine

i really don't understand the american obsession with british food, apart from mcdonalds and corndogs, what does exported US cuisine consist of?

Only if I choose the wine

Deal, but none of that french shite

Our food is wonderfully tasty... I can prove it too! We're an entire country of fat fucks. Sure, the laziness is a factor, but it's mostly the yummy chow.