Reviews and Comments of 'MyVillage' (11)

As Fathers are wont to do ours filmed a lot of the Christmas festivities: the opening of the presents, the drinking of the Champagne; the Christmas Dinner, the drinking of the Champagne; the lighting of the Pudding, the drinking…well you get the idea.

I was watching the little production Baba had made the other day when I caught myself wondering who the lardy was stuffing his face and looking like a beached walrus waiting for his next feed. Not HS, he was playing the impenetrable Wii Pokemon with our nephew. Dear reader, that Jabba was me.

Time catches up with all of us and an excess of rich food and alcohol hadn’t burned off like what it oughta. A little regime change was in order. So for two weeks after Christmas (impressive huh ?) I stayed off the firewater. God, it was boring though - there’s only so many bottles of Fentiman’s, cups of tea and glasses water a man can drink. Enough was enough.

Having already booked Wilton’s just before Christmas it seemed like a suitable venue to swan-dive off the wagon I’d been marooned on. So on a cold January evening I made my way through Mayfair whose streets were seemingly unaffected by the snow falling in less tony burbs.

I don’t know how old Rules – London’s oldest restaurant – is, but Wilton’s surely pushes it close. And like Rules, possibly even more so, once inside with your derrière parked in the snug fitting chairs, you feel completely cosseted against the outside world. This is the sort of place for people who find J Sheekey a bit risqué and Dean Street Townhouse, well, unspeakable.

I’d actually visited because the Head Chef of just a few months was Andrew Turner, someone whose cooking I enjoyed at The Landau a couple of years ago. I was interested to see what he could bring to what I already knew would be a menu chock full of classic Fish and Game dishes. Well the answer was, apparently, not a lot. Save for a tasting menu that failed to set the pulses racing and to which most of the other diners gave little more than a cursory glance, it was business as usual. I suspect that’s the way the regulars like it. Where this leaves a creative force like Mr Turner I’m not entirely sure.

When confronted with a menu like this there is little point in trying to finesse things. Keep it simple and go for the best always works for me. A dozen Colchester Natives were decent-sized specimens with that long, minerally length typical of the variety. A lot of the briny juice which adds to the pleasure of eating Oysters had been lost when opening them, but combined with half a bottle of Krug it was hardly slumming it.

From one classic to another. Dover Sole doesn’t appear on too many restaurant menus, maybe owing to its frightening cost. Here, I reckon they don’t have too many problems shifting them. The fish had been grilled on the bone and was pretty much perfect. Thick and firm with quite a subtle flavour it put me in mind of seafood dishes in Spain where the preparation and service is similarly minimalist. A blob of tartare sauce was creamy but a tad over-acidulated – the last glass of the Krug was a better match.


Woodcock is one of the most prized of the game birds. A relatively short season and comparative rarity means it doesn’t come cheap but if it’s available it’s always worth ordering. The meat was gamey without being overly so, such that the taste of the flesh is masked. The guts, traditionally spread on toast were served here as a small quenelle. The head was rent in twain so the brains could be sucked out (or crunched as in my case. Speaking of which, this is usually the most challenging part of the bird tastewise but in this case it was quite mild.

The combo was finished off with some decent bacon, fried breadcrumbs and a bread sauce that had a good consistency but needed more of a clove ‘kick’, although that word seems wholly inappropriate in a restaurant like Wilton’s.

Of course, once I’d made a rule about not getting all clever with the menu I had to go and break it by not ordering something simple like Ice Cream or Trifle, instead choosing the mysterious Chef’s Dessert of the day. Unfortunately it wasn’t a very good pudding of today or indeed any day. An assembly of Poached Pears, Ice Cream and Chocolate sauce was let down by pears that were still hard. Next time I’m going for the crumble.

Pudding aside though, I had a fine time at Wilton’s. Service was predictably good and the prices, although aimed firmly at Mayfair wallets, were commensurate with ingredients that were of exemplary quality and that were treated properly. By the end of my meal, I was so cosy and well-fed that it was a bit of a wrench to drag me and my corpulent arse out into the cold. Ok, I may be getting old but I think I’ve discovered the perfect restaurant for my retirement years…interspersed with the odd visit to Rules when I fancy a bit of excitement.

Afternoon tea here is a sumptuous affair, a member of the Tea Council's prestigious Tea Guild, The Ritz is expensive but worth it.

A more affordable but just as good Champagne Afternoon Tea is offered here exclusively for the month of August with little luxuries such as champagne jelly and meringue chantilly. John Lewis, third floor

Tea" has received The Tea Guilds Award of Excellence 2009 for its lovely, cosy tea rooms where you can relax in comfy armchairs and be served an array of traditional and unusual teas poured into antique china and silver teapots. 

London's first hotel has a vast array of luxury teas and knowledgeable staff on hand to help you choose. They also won The Tea Guilds Top London Afternoon Tea 2009 Award.

Take their Afternoon Tea very seriously, with 3 types of Afternoon Tea to choose from including Champagne and regular tea themed events such as The Mad Hatters Tea Party.

Has a good selection of teas including cream, white, herbal and green. Children have their own menu and you can visit the gallery while you're there. 

Large chains moving into Portobello road has been a long running rumour, however we can't let our guard down, we really should make sure that All Saints is does not become a trend, if we are to keep the character of the Road intact http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/portobello/

"Chef Paul Kitching might have only opened 21212 (that’s the name, not the bill thankfully) less than a year ago, but his ‘restaurant with rooms’ is already no stranger to awards, picking up a whole host of commendations, including Best New Restaurant in the UK 2009 at the National Restaurant Awards, Most Stylish Hotel 2009 at the Scottish Style Awards and now a Michelin star." http://www.edinburgh-inspiringcapital.com/about/blog/another_michelin_star.aspx

Rotten Tomatoes
In Maurice Sendak's "Where the Wild Things Are," less -- 10 sentences, 37 pages, 338 words -- became more: a much-loved children's book that's sold more than 19 million copies worldwide, 10 million in the U.S.

In the new film version of Sendak's classic, more -- admired director Spike Jonze, smart co-screenwriter Dave Eggers, top-flight actors including Chris Cooper, James Gandolfini and Forest Whitaker, and a budget estimated at $80 million to $100 million -- has paradoxically become less: a precious, self-indulgent cinematic fable that not everyone is going to love.

The difficulty starts with how little the filmmakers had to work with. A feature-length narrative had to be teased out of a tale that fit nicely into an eight-minute animated short back in 1973. Left to their own devices in filling in the book's blanks, the filmmakers have come up with a misdirected pastiche that will please neither children nor their parents, something so empty and misconceived it makes you glad you're an adult...
read more http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/la-et-wild-things16-2009oct16,0,3795491.story

Guardian.co.uk
The critics were puzzled and faintly irritated by Where the Wild Things Are. So, it seems, were the film's producers. This isn't, however, the fault of director Spike Jonze. He's done his best to provide clues for those who can't see what he's getting at.

This, in essence, is the way he tells it. People have been trying to make a movie out of Maurice Sendak's much-loved children's story since the early 1980s. Previous efforts have come to nothing, and this isn't too surprising. The picture-book contains barely 200 words. These put across the cheerful story of a boy who goes off to have adventures with monsters after getting cross, but returns home to find that his supper's still hot. Jonze felt that the big screen would require something more.

One night, when he was tossing and turning and puzzling over the problem, inspiration struck. He wouldn't make a children's film at all. Instead, he would use Sendak's story to convey an insight of his own. It would have less to do with children than with adults, and the crazy way in which they've started behaving. "It would be a story about emotions," he has said. "The way we relate to each other and imbue everything with our own emotional perspectives is insane."...
read more http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/filmblog/2009/dec/14/where-the-wild-things-are

Empire
Maurice Sendak’s Where The Wild Things Are is a classic among bedtime-story books. With its minimal plot, lush, cross-hatched illustrations, menagerie of monsters and the odd, compelling cadence of its poetry (“... and he sailed off through night and day/and in and out of weeks/and almost over a year...”), it not only absorbs adult reader and child listener, but also leaves plenty of elbow room for the imagination. It’s a cliché and an error to describe a book, even one so beloved, as being ‘unfilmable’, but any filmmaker approaching this material was in serious danger of either treading with such care as to render their adaptation flimsy and irrelevant, or impose elaborations with such rigour they’d have been in danger of alienating the millions who grew up with — or are currently growing up with — Sendak’s original. 

The fact that the eventual movie, and boy did it take its sweet time, earned respectable (if not thrilling) box office in the States, despite reports of studio tussles and bawling kids at test-screenings, confirms that Spike Jonze trod with sufficient tact between the two extremes. And it’s to his (and co-writer Dave Eggers’) credit that it’s easier to bemoan what he left out than criticise what he added in... 
read more http://www.empireonline.com/reviews/reviewcomplete.asp?FID=133177