A day to remember

J with the red roses

I have wanted to go to Raymond Blanc's Le Manoir Aux Quat' Saisons for a long time, so with a milestone birthday this year I knew I had the perfect opportunity.

It was booked back in April and we finally got there yesterday, day of my birthday.

The attention to detail is second to none. The moment we arrived, staff came out to welcome us and take our cases. We were then shown straight to our room. No nonsense with checking in and presenting credit cards!

Our room, Crystal, was wonderful. We had the celebration package and a table groaned with twelve perfect Grand Prix roses, a bottle of Champagne on ice, a bottle of Madeira, hand-made chocolates and a selection of fruit.

The marbled bathroom had a huge walk-shower, a huge bath with candles and big crystal bottles of unguents plus heavenly scented slabs of soap.

We immediately went for a walk in the gardens to catch the last tentative rays of sunshine. Here is my picture of the lily pond in the Japanese garden.

There are wonderful sculptures everywhere, reclining figures, figures relaxing with books. At this time of year the main vegetables growing in the veg beds were chard, beetroot and cabbage.

After a heavenly scented bath with candles and Strictly Come Dancing (Jimi voted off -a travesty!), we had a pre-dinner apertif and perused the menu. There were three options: the decouverte tasting menu, the classic menu and the a la carte menu of seasonal specialities. We chose the latter.

Now, if I am brutally honest, I must tell you that the food didn't quite live up to expectations. One of the things I love most about haute cuisine is the complex layering of flavours and the unexpected frisson of delight when you sample something unexpected. But reader, I must tell you, the food at Le Manoir was one-dimensional. The menu promised all sorts of exotic capers but in the main one or two flavours dominated and drowned out the rest.

Cauliflower soup

Chef Gary Jones' amuse bouche was a cup and saucer of cauliflower soup, a confident start with a strong garlic truffle oil providing the oomph that cauliflower needs. 

We both chose plancha-seared Cornish lobster with warm Jersey Royal potatoes, Oscietra caviar, cardamom and red pepper jus.

Cornish lobster

My initial reaction was that the heavy hitter in the cauliflower soup was also at play here, drowning out the flavour of the lobster. J said quite spontaneously that the lobster was a little disappointing.

My duck

My main was roasted Gressingham duck breast with braised chicory and confit of yuzu fruit; jasmine tea and raisin sauce. This was ruined by the very thin sauce poured over the duck and a very powerful orange sauce. Although orange isn't mentioned anywhere, I guess yuzu fruit must taste very similar. The duck itself was a little tough and the vegetables actually quite soft.

J's beef

J fared better with sirloin of beef, which isn't shown on the online menu so I can't tell you everything it came with. In typical J fashion, he did note there could have been more potatoes.

We didn't have a dessert but went straight to the cheese board. The trolley was left languishing by our table for about 10 minutes before the waiter said "oh, looks like I'd better do this." Fortunately the cheeses were not too fragrant, otherwise it may have been a little off putting for the couple next to us.

A nice touch was the banana and passion fruit sorbet complete with candle and Happy Birthday motif for me.


Rounded off with "chocolate discovery" for me (hot chocolate) and tea for J in the lounge - which took about 30 minutes to materialise -  a thoroughly lovely experience but somehow making me think the chef has maybe become a little complacent. It was nowhere as good as Gidleigh Park in Devon, which also has two Michelin stars, where I went a few weeks ago.

Waking this morning, tea arrived dead on 8am as scheduled and breakfast was delicious. We plumped for the full English but Le Manoir excels in healthy choices with delicious fruit salads and seeds, fruits and nuts all meticulously labelled with their countries of origin. The sausage was, I am sure, 90% meat with none of that nasty rusk. 



All in all, a fabulous experience but if Le Manoir is to deliver Raymond Blanc's vision of unsurpassed customer service and gastronomy, they need to step up just a gear or two.

"The Restaurant" leaves nasty taste

I very much enjoyed the first two series of The Restaurant on BBC2, where Raymond Blanc coaches aspiring restrauteurs who are put through tasks each week and eliminated.

But this year's show is a travesty.

Not only is it many miles away from Raymond's wonderful Le Manoir, and set in Bristol on a shoestring, the couples are so hopeless that I am questioning Monsieur Blanc's avarice in agreeing to do the programme. These numpties would surely damage his brand, which has been built so carefully over the years, if they were given a restaurant to run under his name.

How can it be that James and JJ, two cocktail waiters, are still in the competition when we're now at semi-final stage?

JJ, the "chef", had, until last night, only cooked once and that was throwing some cake ingredients into a tin and hoping for the best. He had no idea how to make pastry and fine dining to him is a scotch egg and a cocktail.

I think the BBC is even embarrassed about its own show because their dedicated Restaurant website hasn't been updated this year. All you get is a site where you can watch previous episodes with the iPLayer. Thy don't even have any information on the candidates or their pictures: I had to go to one of the forums.

The other two remaining couples are both useless. Michelle and Steve would be OK running a fairly unchallenging cafe somewhere. He seems to be able to cook, more or less, although his cake in the shape of an Airbus was something a child could have done better. Michelle, as front of house, is hopeless. Every week she cries. Last night she cried because Steve was in agony with his back. But instead of letting him have a lie-down and getting on with the deli task herself, she just blubbed.

Chris is the best cook in the programme, as Raymond said last night, but he is let down by his lazy, incompetent FOH Nathan. He has no clue about promoting or marketing their restaurant and is quite happy to sit on his backside while Chris does all the work.

I can't imagine this series will be repeated, which is a shame because the first two were excellent.

In my searches on the web I found out that the winners of series 1, Jeremy and Jane, gave up running their gastro pub after just six months. The winners of last year's series, Russell and Michelle, still seem to be running The Cheerful Soul.

Random thoughts: Kelly Brook, Madonna, The Restaurant

Yesterday: Chingford to Swindon and return, total 5 hours. Dentressangle:0, Bailey's equine horse feeds 0, Wilkinson's, 0 (maybe I wasn't looking hard enough).



Random thoughts a-plenty.

Kelly Brook was on one of the news bulletins having opened in her first west end play, Fat Pig. Now Kelly is a ravishing girl, invariably referred to as "curvy Kelly" in the magazines. But she always strikes me as a girl in search of a talent. Goodness knows she tries hard enough. There's been TV presenting, but she only ever comes across as wooden. I caught a glimpse of her in "Dirty Dancing - Time of their Lives" the other day and was appalled when she referred to two candidates as "them two." Whaaaat!

I saw her in a film where she was some Italian countess or some old nonsense, and again, she gave Westonbirt Arboretum a run for its money.

I haven't seen any reviews of her new role yet but seeing as she wears a bikini on stage, I doubt if her acting ability will matter very much.

She has an old-style glamour about her, reminscent of Sophia Loren, but as soon as she opens her mouth it all goes wrong. She has one of those ordinary twittery little girl voices and keeps saying "and um," and giggling. If I was you Kelly, I would have some voice coaching. And keep up with the acting lessons.

Dear Madonna
I'm sure you're pretty fed up with Guy but it would be nice for Lourdes and the gang if you and he didn't have an acrimonious public divorce. I see that you have both hired top-flight "name" divorce lawyers. I see that you're both saying you want a civilised divorce and yet you're both deploying the unsavoury tactic of getting friends and insiders to do your carping in the press. I know you savour control, Madonna, but try to be big about this. If Guy's "insiders" spill the beans, you don't have to respond. Be dignified. For all our sakes.

I very much enjoyed BBC2's The Restaurant last year and was enthusiastic when the new series started recently. But it should really have been a one-off. Monsieur Blanc is too big for his boots this year. He's choosing candidates purely on whether or not they will dance to his tune and nothing to do with their business capabilities. What put the tin hat on it for me was last week's dismissal of Helen and Stephen. Their marketing concept was the best. I could see that "Conquering Cabbage" would be a PR winner in these times of obese children and too much fast food. Maybe the execution was flawed. But it was far superior to the bland, minimalist book put together by those useless boys James and Alasdair.

Because James was a chef and can clearly cook, and is also suitably subservient, Blanc has kept him in the contest, even though he and his business partner Alasdair have been completely clueless in all respects.

Helen on the other hand, while only an average cook, showed that her food for families concept works. Her restaurant was always packed. But because she's too "controlling," as Raymond sneered, she was booted out. Yet in the previous week, she rose to the challenge of cooking for a private dinner party and did very well, whereas James and Alasdair left everything to the last minute and only narrowly averted disaster. I've lost a lot of interest - and respect - for the show now.

The daily flotsam

Men! Have you ever wondered what's going through your little lady's mind?

Well wonder no more, because I've decided to share with you my thoughts as I drove to Swindon this morning. This drive along the M25 and M4 ranges takes an average of 2.5 hours, depending on how many accidents there have been. Last Friday the return leg reached a new low of 3.5 hours owing to about three accidents on the M4. Sheesh, people are so careless. I see them in their cars fiddling with their Tom Toms and their phones. I could scream!

So here are the random thoughts:
- where is the Bailey's equine feeds lorry? Didn't see it last week either. "Horse nutrition in the bag."
- I wonder how much I would get if I took the voluntary separation package. Would it be enough to build a new conservatory? No, don't think about it, don't want to leave.
- what should I wear on Sunday (taking mum out for lunch). Perhaps I could take a pair of flat shoes so that we can walk round Cockington afterwards and see the daffodils. I can't lurch around on high heels all day.
- where has the muse gone? I haven't had the urge to be creative for several days now. Can you reach saturation point with scrapbooking where you don't want to see another brad, button or bloom as long as you live?
- won't bother reading the papers today if they're all obsessed with Prince Harry. He is sooooo boring. He joined the army so why are we surprised he's on the front line? What were the UK press and paps doing to miss the story (it was apparently broken by international press). Didn't they notice that Harry wasn't in London and falling out of nightclubs - for five weeks?! (Well actually they did but unusually for the UK press they were adhering to a blackout on the Harry news).
- our Eurovision chances look very bleak. The BBC seems to have handed the whole thing to an intern if you ask me.
- glad James won the Masterchef final. I tipped him to win from the very first time we saw him! But Emily will go far too.
- How about this as a great programme idea? "Masterchef meets The Restaurant." I'm convinced the finalists in Masterchef reached a much higher standard than those in The Restaurant (the male winner of The Restaurant was clueless about seasonality - so was hardly a food expert). It would make a good Christmas special. Have Raymond Blanc and the other judges blind tasting (so they aren't biased) and have James and Emily and The Restaurant winners competing against each other.
- hope I don't put on too much weight after this weekend....eating out twice today...going to my mum's....aaarghhh.

So there you have it. Illuminating, no?