The Daily Telegraph, 8 September
Mark Palmer visits Ednam House, Roxburghshire

Put your knife and fork down for a minute and stare out the window at Ednam House and you're in a different world.  At least, a different world for those of us who are perfectly happy to do business with a fish on a plate but have no interest in dangling one on the end of a line. A friend who lives not far from here assures me that the stretch of River Tweed directly opposite the restaurant makes for the most expensive beat in all of Scotland. Which is to say that you pay £7,000 per person for a week's fishing. Why? Well, it's very pretty, with Floors Castle, seat of the Duke of Roxburgh, a few hundred yards upstream and with the ruins of Kelso Abbey standing serenely behind you. But the real reason is because this is the Junction, the point where the rivers Teviot and Tweed meet. More Atlantic salmon are caught on the fly here than anywhere else in Europe.

The Guardian, 8 September
Pascal Wyse visits Restaurant Martin Wishart, Leith, Edinburgh

One of the most disgusting things I have ever eaten was the result of spinach, a juicer and curiosity. It was at that early, exciting stage of juicer ownership, where experimentation seems essential, and you chuck everything but the gas bill down the chomper to see what liquid it gives up. The spinach bile was satanic, and got more so as an army of high-octane additives were brought in to rescue it. This is why the canapés at Martin Wishart struck a note of terror: a shot glass of something suspiciously similar arrived, alongside a haggis bonbon and a duck and pork rillettes lollipop.
Restaurant Martin Wishart - review in full >>

The Independent on Sunday, 9 September
Terry Durack visits Haozhan, London W1

I don't go to Chinatown much. Not because I don't like Chinese food, but because I do. One thing I have learnt is that if a smart Chinese restaurateur wants to do something with integrity and style, he won't do it in Chinatown. That's where you go to fill up when you've had too much to drink or to pick up your shiitake mushrooms. It's the last place you go for dining with integrity and style. So why am I in Gerrard Street? Because Jimmy Kong of New Fook Lam Moon has opened Haozhan, with a former Hakkasan chef, Chee Loong Cheong, in the kitchen. And because Haozhan doesn't look like standard Chinatown fare with its big fashionable drum lights, slate floor, and dark wooden, unclothed tables.
Haozhan - The Independent review in full >>

The Observer, 9 September
Jay Rayner visits Purnell’s, Birmingham

Stand back. I am about to get excited about a carrot, and believe me that's not a sentence I ever thought I would write. It's not that I have anything against carrots (although given the over-boiled, ruptured variety with their back taste of death that I was fed at primary school I would be entitled, I think, to hate them). I just find them too much themselves, too - oh God - orange to be worthy of eulogy. And then I tried the ribbon of carrot, flavoured with cumin and toffee, on my companion's plate at Purnell's in Birmingham and, well, the rest is just so much giddy saliva. The essential carroty-ness was there and the sensitive cooking had retained a little bite. But then came layers of flavour which added so much more to the story. We can argue over what makes a great cook, but surely this ability to show off the humblest of ingredients to the best of its advantage must be on the list?
Purnell’s - The Observer review in full >>

Are You Ready To Order?
Jan Moir visits Nam Long Le Shaker, London SW5

Sooner or later, all roads lead to the Nam Long Le Shaker, the Vietnamese restaurant and bar that has quietly thrived in a corner of West London for more than 20 years. With its Saigon junk shop décor and eccentric owner Thai Dang, it has a back street ambience and rackety allure that’s hard to resist. Diners tired of being royally fleeced by the new glut of bland restaurants serving overcooked chef’s ego and foamed fricassee of baloney could do worse than come here, where the pancake menu pulls no punches and the cocktails could floor an ox. Being too scared (and sensible) to ever try it, I couldn’t recommend the restaurant’s famous Flaming Ferrari cocktail - described on their list as being a ‘powerful jet mixture only suitable for the professional’. The professional what? Perhaps we really don’t want to know the answer to that.
Nam Long Le Shaker – Are You Ready to Order? review in full >>