Ben

here and here

I like The Eagle and The Peasant, both in Clerkenwell. Of course, I can't take credit for discovering The Eagle.

I want to go here when it opens... of course it's not in London, but oh well:
http://www.caterersearch.com/Articles/2008/10/31/324437/dorchester-head-chef-leaving-to-run-own-pub.html

And here, but once again out there:
http://www.thehindsheadhotel.com/

I've been here:
http://www.gordonramsay.com/thenarrow/
but not here or here yet:
http://www.gordonramsay.com/thedevonshire/
http://www.gordonramsay.com/thewarrington/

I like this one:
http://www.the-albion.co.uk/

My favorite:
http://www.stjohnrestaurant.com/home/

My list of grand things yet to do:
http://www.fatduck.co.uk/
http://www.gordonramsay.com/royalhospitalroad/
http://www.theyewtree.net/

...not thick enough... still tastes fine though...

Update: made it again... this time it was nice and thick, but my camera's dead... boo.

I need my ring mold, squeeze bottles, and Larousse...

In America, first you cook the vegetables, then you throw out the water, then you eat the vegetables.
In France, first you cook the vegetables, then you throw out the vegetables, then you eat the water.

I say this in the hope that it will be properly indexed by the great and mighty google, so that my voice may be heard: Jamie Oliver's Fifteen in London is a piece of shit. Keep in mind this has nothing to do with the food... because I didn't get to try the food. Fifteen has a nice bar, where I foolishly thought I might be able to get a meal. The hostess was in on this delusion as well.

The manager, however, arbiter of all things great and managerial, knew better. He said, "if we served you a meal at the bar, then we would have to serve everyone meals at the bar." And this made me feel strangely guilty, as if I had done something wrong by sitting at the bar with a menu in front of me. It also left me feeling that sense of injustice I remember from middle school, compelling me to ask "and what would be wrong with that?" Admittedly, I was allowed to order primi at the bar, but only primi... and the only thing that looked even vaguely good on there was the gnocchi, but my roommate had the gnocchi and says it's crap... so I wasn't about to try that. I wanted the calf's liver, or maybe the polenta, both firmly ensconced in the secondi section... and, as such, not bar food.

Good restaurants serve food at the bar. There are numerous examples, some vastly better that what Fifteen could possibly be: Frasca, Masa, Bouchon and Le Pichet. I know of no counterexamples, while some of the best meals of my life were had at the Frasca bar.

All these are unnecessary complications. The point here is simple. The manager is an ass. His job, as near as I can tell, is to make sure customers are happy... instead he's made me quite angry. Though, I suppose you might argue that since I was unable to order any food, I am, in a strict sense, not a customer. But, I would have liked to have been. And now, rather that having created a potentially happy follower of the Jamie Oliver cause, I am instead a pissed off enemy who will continue to mock Jamie Oliver's Food Network origins, since this isn't a restaurant about food, but about its pedantic social agenda.

To summarize:
(1) The manager should be fired or severely beaten with a spatula, possibly both.
(2) Serve food at the bar.

...has something to do with Mario Batali... I forget.

Mud. East Village: 9th between 1st and 2nd. The coffee isn't very good and is hideously expensive ($3.75 for a medium latte (they call it a large)), and I think they're only open til ten. On the other hand, their mugs are great, people are friendly, it's dark and feels like a cafe. It's my current favorite.

Esperanto. Washington Squareish: Open 24 hours. Good pastries, friendly waitresses with great hair, clothes, accents, and so forth. Coffee kind of sucks, but they did try to make a rosette yesterday.

Verb. Williamsburg. 218 Bedford Ave. Once again, the coffee is kind of shitty, but it is a nice cafe. First US Coffee I had after my triumphant return from Europe ages ago.

Alt Coffee. East Village. ...reminds me of Prufrocks. Coffee is, once again, sort of bad, but they have pinball machines... and the barristas are distant and uncaring in a way that seems less contrived than hipster apathy.

9th Street Espresso. These people look like the Seattle coffee assholes I'm starting to miss. Their stupid cafe closed 4 minutes ago and I just found out about it. I have to wait till tomorrow, but I have high hopes, if only they had Bauhaus like hours, everything would be ok.

This has more coffee shops.

I do not recommend:

Room Service
Kai Thai
Some place on 7th between 2nd and 3rd

I miss Tom's.

Pad Thai should not be goo. Pad Thai should taste of something other than fish sauce. Pad Thai should have garlic in it. It ought to come with a lime, bean sprouts, carrots and egg. It had better be spicy. These three are missing any number of these essentials.

My potentially favorite coffee shop is open 24 hours. I just bought a second copy of a book I read last week by accident. The only things I have unread are:
(1) Longer poems of Auden
(2) Mishkin on Finance
(3) Benjamin Graham
(4) Hackers and Painters, eh sure...

Also, it's at least 80 degrees in here... and it's cold out there. Somebody tell me what to do.

or, how to keep your garlic intake up without eating any more pizza.