Dabbous - it's all teeny tiny

Last Saturday night we went to Dabbous. We were lucky. It’s more difficult to blag a table here than win the lottery thanks to the rave reviews by no less than AA Gill and Giles Coren. Luckily, friends of ours had booked theirs months ago so when their dining companions let them down, we were delighted.

The interior of the restaurant is stark. I don’t like to sound flash but it reminded me of Cape Town’s ‘The Test Kitchen’ – also the hottest ticket in that town and allegedly Heston’s favourite Cape Town haunt. Dabbous is a smaller place and its kitchen hidden away whereas in The Test Kitchen, the open kitchen is a feature in the middle of the restaurant. But the unadorned look and feel was similar.

A protégé of Raymond Blanc and Agi Sverisson at Texture, chef Oli Dabbous is well used to working with Michelin starred royalty and, I would say, is now chasing his very own first Michelin star.

We started with cocktails in the cavernous, subterranean bar. The cocktail menu is very varied, unusual even and we were asked whether we’d like any guidance. Aided by the waiter, we chose our beautifully presented drinks but agreed they were somewhat lacking in alcohol. We had to request something to nibble and were given a teeny, weeny dear little white bowl of cashews – just about enough for two nuts each – but more of that later.

Onward and upstairs to our table where the menus were difficult to read even with my glasses on although my companions claimed to have no difficulty – with their glasses on. I really must make an appointment to investigate laser eye surgery. This is happening far too often.

We decided to order a la carte rather than the tasting menu at £54 per head. I mention this only because in Raymond Blanc’s review dated January 2012, he refers to £49 per head for the tasting menu. So, get there quick because at that rate, in two years time, the price will be up at almost £80 per head (if you compound the six monthly 10% rise). The staff seemed a little put out when we ordered a la carte and said that we’d really need to order at least a total of four dishes each – two starters and two mains – as they were very small. Oh my, shades of 1981 and the accidentally most expensive meal I'd ever had at that stage at AWT's Ménage a trois.

Our bread came out in a brown paper bag – sort of an incongruous gimmick. We were told it was homemade soda bread with all sorts of stuff in it and it came with apparently homemade butter on a little slate. The bread was really delicious – the butter was too salty.

The starters were by and large excellent (in a tiny sort of way) although my first, a concoction of allium (that’s a bulbous plant of a genus that includes the onion and its relatives, e.g., garlic, leek, and chives – but I’m sure you knew that) in a cold, clear liquid with a herbed oil floating on top – ach, I could take it or leave it. The others raved about the smoked egg and we all agreed that the ‘pea and mint’ – a sort of thick, cold mint soup-come-sauce with goodies in it was just to die for.

Two of us had the Iberico pork and two had the lamb for mains. The pork was heralded as ‘the best pork I’ve ever eaten’ by both men. The lamb was very good – but not the best I’ve ever eaten. In fact, I’ve eaten better lamb cooked by my husband – but it’s one of his specialities.

What we didn’t understand is that they clearly serve the tiny sized, tasting menu portions as their a la carte versions. Why do they do that? Why not scale up, charge a little more and serve proper sized portions so that people don’t have to order two starters and two main courses? If I were Oli, I’d re-think that.

For the duration of the meal, the service was irritating and bordering on amateur. My wine glass was removed a total of three times despite the table's wine bottle being half full and my having asked them not to take it away. Go know. There was a lot of leaning across the table to serve food and to take plates away – hasn’t anyone trained these people – and they got the starter order wrong not once, but twice. It was a bit strange really. They were all very posh but slightly odd too.

The evening wasn’t helped by the two men in our party having a few too many sherbets resulting in some very boring and repetitive conversation which went like this:

Man 1: The food really is very, very good.
Man 2: Yes, very good – but the service is amateurish.
Man 1: Yes, that’s a shame because the food really is excellent, even though the service isn’t very good.
Man 2: Well, the food is really good but it’s let down by the service.
Man 1: The service is terrible which is a shame because the food has been excellent.

… and so on, ad naseum.

My dessert was ridiculous. The description was ‘peach in it’s own juice’ which led me to think it would be a whole fruit or perhaps half in some delicious sauce. What came out was a small slice of peach, less than a quarter of a fruit, in a juice. Rather disappointing. My other half had a creamy, bananaery concoction, which he enjoyed (he likes a banana), and our friends both had cheese – pretty generous portions.

Now let’s re-visit the teeny, weeny, inadequate bowl of cashews. It came up on the bill at £3.00 which we all though outrageous, a real ‘spoiler’. Other than that, the cost was reasonable for what we had – although we’d have liked to have paid a little more and not left feeling slightly hungry.

The big test is – would we go back there? Well, far be for me to disagree with the doyens of eating but I largely just didn’t get it. Yes, some of the food (not all of it) was spectacular but the concept needs a little adjusting if it’s going to work in the long run. The very reason we went off-piste was so as not to have to have the tiny tasting portions.  Ho hum. So the answer is no – at least for the moment.

Big-J runs Canada (the whole of it) as I get to grips with American politics

We almost didn’t go to Canada.  Big-J is taking his training for the Adidas Thunder Run very seriously in-deed.   And what with his damaged hamstring, his strict training programme has been forcibly interrupted in a big way by intensive physiotherapy.  He hadn’t wanted to see a physio because illness and injury seems to equal weakness in his book but, having had a few sessions with the lovely Jonny in Colindale, true to form, Big-J now has a new best friend.  “Such a nice bloke,” he told me, “so caring and so kind.  I really like him.”

So the trip to the wedding of our friend’s daughter was conditional.  Conditional upon him being able to do at least two 10k runs whilst we were there.   “I have to do it,” he said - repeatedly.  “I can’t let my team down.  They’re relying on me.”  As the oldest in the team by a fairly long way, Big-J is determined to put on a good show and, so to speak, keep his end up.  

To be fair, I understand where he’s coming from.  The Thunder Run is a relay race which is run over 24-hours with one runner having to be on the track at all times during the 24 hours.  Through daylight and dark, in sunshine or rain, they must run and run …. and run.

Day One in Toronto was a bit hot and humid with the imminent threat of thundery showers so he headed off to the hotel’s state of the art, fully air conditioned gymnasium.  There they had had multifarious treadmill machines and he managed 5k on one of those but didn’t enjoy it at all.  Returning to the room 40 minutes later he said: “I only like to run outside” as he did a few star jumps.  “That way, I at least feel like I’m getting somewhere.  Better for the knees it may be but running on the spot just doesn’t float my boat.”

He spent the next 48-hours asking anyone (who was prepared to listen) what outdoor route he should take and where he was least likely to encounter bears  (his bear wrestling days are over) and all the other stuff that people-who-run seem to find so fascinating. Two days later, he donned his dinky shorts and specially designed aerodynamic running shirt and headed off to the great Canadian outdoors.  That was at 9am on the Sunday and he expected to be back in the room by around 10am – that same day.

By 10.32am, my mind was wandering into some spine-chilling places.  I knew that, to keep his silhouette lean and clean, he’d left with no phone, no money and no real clue as to where he was headed.  However, I felt confident that a man with A-Level geography couldn’t come to too much harm and, telling myself not to be so silly, I pushed all panicky thoughts to the back of my mind as I watched Mitt Romney and Barak Obama shamelessly electioneer courtesy of CNN.  They’re so, well, obvious – the Americans.  No subtlety at all. The way I see it, both candidates are offering the electorate big tax breaks which anyone marginally above idiot can tell is unaffordable in the current economic climate.  And Obama should be ashamed of himself – but I digress.

At 11.06am I started pondering the complexities of arranging trans-Atlantic transportation of a corpse assuming, that is, that I would ever find his body being as how he had no identification, no money and no phone about his person.  It would clearly take some time and ingenuity. By 11.34am and having an anxiety attack, I was mentally preparing to break it to my friends that Big-J was missing.  This, in the full knowledge that his disappearance would blight their big weekend and that their daughter’s wedding would forever be associated with our tragedy.

By 11.47am I was suppressing hysteria as my imagination ran riot.  Perhaps he’d wandered into that scene from the Bonfire of the Vanities and been mugged, dun-over, kidnapped, beaten, shot or knifed.  And do they actually have bears in downtown Toronto? The endless possibilities stretched out before me. At this point, I’d like to be able to tell you that all was well and he’d come back to the hotel and been waylaid in the bar by a friend – but he hadn’t.  Anyway, I didn’t dare leave the room to check just in case I missed him as he staggered in (perhaps missing a limb or two) after whatever grisly experience had befallen him.

Finally, at around 11.53am he did actually sort of fall into the room, flushed, sweating and palpably overwrought.  “I’m sorry, I’m sorry …” he spluttered.  “You must have been so worried” he added.  “I’m really sorry …. so sorry.”  It transpired that he had indeed got lost - very lost - having thought that the whole of Toronto was designed on a grid system and not realising that one part of it skewed off at an angle.  His internal compass had really let him down. He’d been out running and walking for almost three hours and was somewhat shaky on his pins.  I tried to be annoyed but actually, I was just relieved to be able to breathe again.

In the words of the great bard, all’s well that ends well. This coming weekend we’re off to buy Big-J a running bum-bag for storage of his phone and some money before even runs Regents Park again – A-Level Geography or not.

Great knees, shame about the arse

I’m rather proud of Big-J just at the moment. And I’ll go further. Just between us here and not to be mentioned to anyone else, I have a sneaking admiration for him. Having spent most of his life as a dyed-in-the-wool, sitting-on-his-arse couch potato, he regularly preached the gospel of a three-course meal with plenty of wine being far better for the soul than a game of tennis.  But blow me down with a feather, last Sunday he competed in a 10k race in sunny Crouch End.

Raining it may have been over most of London but in Crouch End, the sun shone on my man as strutted his stuff around the “fun” run route. Along with his 30-years-younger son and a just slightly older friend, he completed the course in around 58 minutes – not his best ever speed but as near as damn it. We all know this because each run is meticulously recorded via a GPS watch onto his computer. He can chart his progress, compare his times and inspect his various routes. Marvellous. I love it when he painstakingly explains all that data to me. Not a man who can do anything by halves, I fear he's mentally in training for a marathon at some future, unspecified date.

When he arrived home, he was triumphant. “I could have gone on and on” he said, “it was really easy, I feel fantastic,” he added as he did a few lunges and star jumps before skipping off for a shower. The reward was a very naughty but nice brunch, prepared by yours truly, for the runners, me and a fellow running widow.

Running is actually quite boring but endless discussion about running takes boring to a whole new level. It’s sort of like train spotting. They talk about their shoes, their kit, the route, the warm-up before, the cool down afterwards, the pace, the sprint at the end – I could go on or we could all just go watch some paint dry.

After a good half an hour of yawning tedium around the table, I had to ban all talk of running just until we finished our meal and I could escape to the kitchen to do the far more interesting clearing up.

A rather sporty friend of ours was dead impressed that Big-J, at his advanced age, is able to run without any apparent ill effects.
“Did he do any sport as a youngster?” asked our friend.
“No”, said I. “He was a couch potato, he just sat on his arse until around three years ago.”
“That’ll be why he can run at his age,” said the friend, “most of us have knackered our knees by now which is why we can’t do it.”

So, along with his many other talents, Big-J has great knees! It’s just such a shame that he's worn out his arse.

Are we hampered by our own technology?

I think I speak for many of my age and older when I say: Too right we are.

I am in technology hell. And I had thought I was reasonably clued up.

Yesterday I took delivery of a new (used) car with lots of toys. I know, I’m very lucky to have satellite navigation, Bluetooth and a car that actually tells me – not only when it needs fuel – but what's more if it fancies some brake fluid, coolant, oil or a service. It'll also have a chat with me - if I speak to it strictly on its own terms. My only problem is that the system is completely different from my last car and has totally confounded me. (By the way, I hope you don't think I'm trying to show off, I am merely attempting to outline the depth of my difficulties.)

Yesterday, I thought I’d cracked the Bluetooth thingy. I got my iPhone connected and my (dreadful, according to Big-J) music stored on said device was streaming nicely into the car. OK, I couldn’t figure out how to choose what to listen to. It insisted upon playing whatever it liked, only permitting me to change tracks randomly, and after six track changes by me, it stubbornly refused to cooperate any further. Today, I can’t get either the telephone function or the music to work through the system unless I physically manhandle the phone and tell it what to do by pressing buttons. So quaint and old fashioned.

And then the worst thing of all happened. Whilst backing up and syncing my phone this afternoon, I pressed something and disabled it completely. Nightmare. Never mind – I thought – I’ll rush up to my appointment in town and wrestle the phone into submission when I get back. But no. Barely a mile down the Finchley Road I realised that without a working phone to pay for parking and for the congestion charge, I was utterly stymied. So, I turned around and headed straight to my son’s place (and, without a working mobile phone, I was forced to drop in at home to call him from the landline and warn him of my impending arrival - very inconvenient but only fair) in the hope that he would like, sort it like. Oh he – the wondrous Apple’ite for whom, last Christmas, my sister bought a t-shirt emblazoned with “No, I can’t fix your computer,” pressed a few buttons and the dam phone sprang back to life. It took him ooh ... all of four and a half seconds. “Ah” he mused, “you really should be connected to the Cloud and then everything would sync on all your devices.” Go know…

So now, the phone is functioning again – but not as it should be doing in the car. The Cloud is operating – but not entirely. The car is working – although the seatbelt is trying to strangle me, the mirrors don’t fold in as they should do and I can’t get the music going or make a phone call with any confidence. But of course (as Big-J so wisely pointed out to me), we mustn't forget the whole point of a car. It is, in fact, to get us from A to B and that, dear friends, is something it's doing rather well.

All of the "balloons and whistles" are merely designed to make our lives more comfortable and less stressful. Yeah. Pass me the valium please.