Val de Loire

How can you possibly not like the Loire Valley? A place that has more castles that have been written about in Disney stories, where a salad involves rillons (pork belly cooked in lard and browned with caramel), lardons and ham accompanied by a few lettuce leaves (but at least it comes with a decent dressing, which is more than can be said for most salads you get in London....), where anything that isn't a salad is served with frites, where trying to get an outdoor table for lunch invites dramatic remonstrations from a waitress complaining "Mais c'est impossible! Voyez! C'est complet!", where turning up for dinner at a restaurant without a reservation is met with looks of disapproval from a dour-faced waitress and replies of "Vous n'avez pas reservé? Je ne sais pas, hein?", where you can have dinner in a troglodyte cave, where a quick lunch ends up taking hours, where it takes at least three hours to have dinner in a half-empty restaurant that will serve no more than five tables on a Saturday night?

Château at Saumur, where a castle has existed since the 12th Century

Chamonix 2007: Day 1

Oui, cette saison est encore arrivée. Fun, food and frolicking in the mountains.... actually, that sounds rather Rogers and Hammerstein-like. What I'm talking about is a gruelling, five-day marathon of hiking and stuffing oneself with fine French food.

En résumé, le premier jour:

1. Hiked up to Lac Vert:

2. Had a picnic:

3. Enjoyed the mountain view:

真是十分漂亮！

4. Had dinner at La Calèche, a museum of the rustic macabre, with a busy decor of copper pans, animal heads, musical instruments and, as the name implies, a big horse-drawn carriage, along with other random paraphernalia:

Tarte au reblochon

Potée savoyarde

Cappuccino de framboises, glace pistache

Petit café

Asadal and Jump

Asadal, 227 High Holborn, London, WC1V 7DA

Sometimes, all you want is a baby chicken stuffed with sticky rice, garlic and dates, slow cooked in a stone pot and served with broth. No? Well, you will after you go to Asadal. This basement Korean restaurant right next to Holborn tube station is quite a find. It has sleek, modern but simple decor and the food is great. Definitely try the whatever baby-chicken-stuffed-with-sticky-rice-garlic-and-dates-slow-cooked-in-broth thing is called. I have to warn you that this isn't the easiest thing to eat, particularly with thin, metal Korean chopsticks, but man it's worth the effort. The tofu jeon is also good - light, deep fried tofu with peppers.

And what better way to round off a delicious Korean meal than with the high-octane, martial arts extravaganza that is Jump, down the road at the Peacock Theatre? Performed by the Ye Gam Inc. theatre company, this is like a cross between The Itchy and Scratchy Show, The Matrix, a Bruce Lee spoof and a bad 80s pop video. On amphetamines. The 'story' basically involves a martial arts-obsessed family that indulges in fights involving crazy stunts, slow-mo action replays, fast forward, rewind, tae kwondo dance routines and all manner of bizarre and highly entertaining action.

Dreamt that....

I've been having some very weird, random dreams recently. It started the other day, when I dreamt that I poured soured milk on my coffee. For some reason, this was very distressing. I then dreamt that I had to clean up a vatful of coffee ground sludge off my sink, which I presume was the leftovers from the coffee I poured down the sink the previous night. Anyone an expert on coffee dreams?

Yesterday, though, following dinner with SM at the Gourmet Burger Kitchen in Hampstead, I dreamt that we were having dinner at some other generic establishment, let's call it Franchise X, wherein the following conversation ensued at the end of the meal:

Me: "Excuse me, could we have a glass of tap water, please?"

Waiter: "I'm sorry, sir, we can't serve you tap water."

Me: "What do you mean, you can't serve us tap water?"

Waiter: "I can't just serve you tap water, you have to be eating something."

Me: "But we've just had a whole meal! You want us to have another one so we can get a glass of water?!?"

Waiter: "I'm sorry, sir, but that's our policy."

Me: "Well, how much do you want people to spend in order to get a glass of tap water?? Could I speak to your manager, please?"

Wait 15 minutes...... some guy in pyjamas and a toothbrush comes out of the kitchen and walks towards our table.

Toothbrush guy: "Excuse me, sir, you had a query about something?"

Me: "Are you the manager?"

Toothbrush guy: "We don't actually have managers, it goes against company policy. But I have the requisite skills and qualities for somebody in a managerial position."

A guy in pyjamas and a toothbrush? What the heck is that about? No doubt there are signs of a deep-seated anguish at the state of the service industry in this country. I have, on occasion, been charged 1p for tap water at restaurants, which is, frankly, just insulting. Oh, we know it's a legal requirement, but we're still gonna charge you for the effort of turning on the tap.... But, dude, what do they put in those burgers at GBK??