Fellini Restaurant early evening offer

Fellini early bird menu only £10.50 for two courses.

Must start at 6 pm and be out by 7.45. Get your order in fast as service is slow. 

I have their menu. My favourites are starter -parma ham and melon, or baked brie, followed by veal in cream and mushroom sauce.

I admit I'm always tempted by the Portobello, another £4.95 for a chocolate ice cream in a porcelain mug you get to keep. The mug has a hole in the handle for the matching spoon. But if you drop the spoon on a tile floor it breaks. That's why I hate hard floors. I prefer soft floors in kitchens as well as the dining room-lounge and even the bathroom.

If I break a spoon, it's back to Fellini for another ice cream.
Service charge of 10%.
Coffee and drinks extra.
Fellini Caffe and Restaurant
294 Uxbridge Road
Hatch End
Pinner
Middlesex HA5 4HR
Tel: 020 8428 4359 /0111
www.felliniacaffe.co.uk

Angela Lansbury is a travel writer and the author of twenty books. See lulu.com

Wear ski clothes in snow!

First the bad news.
I just read about somebody who died in their car parked outside their own home, where they often went to speak on their mobile phone.
Whether they died of hypothermia, or from carbon monoxide poisoning caused by putting on the heater, my solution is valid. Wear warm clothes whenever you step outside the front door.
An Irish student (Feb 2014) died in London, wearing only a tee-shirt and jeans to a pub, went out for some food, also died.
Now the good news.
You can spend all day on a ski slope in ski clothes. When it's snowy outside, even though I'm nowhere near a ski resort, I wear clothes designed to be worn in snow.
I discovered this trick one year when I was considering taking a walking tour of the East End of London. London has various walking tours, Jack the Ripper, Jewish East end, Shakespeare, Beatles and many more by several companies. I was wondering what to wear, when I remembered that a previous year I'd been at a ski resort in the USA with snow outside up to your knees, temperatures to match, yet managed to survive, physically and mentally. How had I done it? By swearing ski clothes. If only I had them. Glancing at my nearby hall pegs I saw my ski jacket was there. Complete with built in hood, zip up pockets outside for hands or cash or travel cards, inside pockets to keep your cash or credit card or ID safe, big pockets for cameras and water bottles. Everything for the person who wants to walk around in cold weather without lugging a handbag or suitcase on wheels.
So I went off on my walking tour. I thought people would laugh at my garish luminous green and pink ski jacket in grey London. On the contrary, I was greeted by admiring glances. By the end of the tour everybody else was shivering and Americans, wearing thin gloves and macs and coats, complimented me on my foresight and envied my warm ski clothes.

Crocodiles Kill Child Swimming In Australia

Reports of a child missing presumed dead in crocodile infested waters in north Australia. Kakadu Park, where Crocodile Dundee was filmed, north of Alice Springs. About 13, unlucky 13, killed.      Comments say that weather is hot but people, adults and children, locals and tourists, should swim in swimming pools.
Are there nearby swimming pools? If so, are the swimming pools free or cheap?
If so, there should be a sign with a cross over swimming and a picture or nearest swimming pool. I suggest the words: "DO NOT ENTER WATER. Crocodiles live in these waters. If you want to swim, nearest swimming pool is at ...."
The same applies to areas of the USA, Florida, and Singapore.

Nomads and settlers

Have you ever driven or flown across Australia or the USA or Canada? You can drive for hours and never see a human being.
Original people were nomads.  They could have gone anywhere.
Modern cities cram immigrants into tiny areas leaving most of the country untouched.
Singapore is a tiny filled island. So is New York.
I am a city person.
Contrast continents, places where a nomadic tribe could so easily live as they once did. But they would have a life expectancy of 30, no hospital, no TV.
I am not a camping enthusiast.
But if you are, and want to live that way, a hermit or a whole tribe could disappear into the wilderness for three generations and never be found.

London Canalside Gourmet Restaurant Dock Kitchen

The Dock Kitchen, near the famous Kensal Green Cemetery, was the unusual venue for a Wine Society Dinner. The Wine Society, whose events are mostly in Stevenage at their wine shop, hosted a group dinner in NW London, started with drinks downstairs by the riverside windows, then a seated dinner upstairs.
The wine tasting events are far less sociable, you scarcely speak to anybody, unless you make a point of it as everybody is charging around seeking the next glass of wine to taste, spitting in spittoons and making notes. But a sit down dinner is an opportunity to meet other people as well as enjoying a restaurant.

Our event started with drinks in the Dock Kitchen bar area overlooking the water. Delightful venue, bricks and arched windows in the bar. Whole place most amusing. Case displaying items for sale including napkin holders. Paintings of people on the door to the Ladies' and Gents' toilets.

Starter
Platters to share. Chicken livers - great; Indian salad, Curried tomato, all good.
Chewy Indian breads.

Main Course
Lamb and spinach. What - no potato? More Indian breads.

Cheese
Three great cheeses paired with Greywacke Reisling 2011.

Dessert
High point of the meal. Pistachio and nutmeg cake. Paired with Greywacke late harvest Pinot Gris  2011.

Coffee: All kinds of coffee. (But no chocolates - at least not for us.)

Waiting Staff
Helpful and friendly.

Clientele of Group
My end of my table was mostly middle aged or retired couples or half couples (pair of men whose wives were at home),  all either retired and/or with children in their twenties or thirties.

Cost
A three figure sum per person. But that includes:
1) Talk by wine expert, pre-dinner 'aperitif' drinks.
2) Four course meal including Indian breads, three platter starter, main course, three cheeses, plus dessert and coffee.
3) Also drinks; plus three glasses of different wines including a main course wine, a cheese wine, and a sweet dessert wine.
4) Bottled still and fizzy waters. Service included. And no charge for taking coats.

The Event and The Venue For Group Dinners
I heard and saw the speaker by pushing towards the front, but when you have a speaker in a long room over three areas you need a microphone.
Upstairs the long tables were great for getting to know people. But the speaker who had travelled all the way from New Zealand to tell us about his wines was cut short so we could start dinner. It was a pity he was not given a microphone so he could have continued the talk to both rooms simultaneously, or in succession. Some of us had booked the event specifically to hear about his wines and ask questions.
This was a Wine Society event mainly booked by married couples, so how do I describe it? Business? Or Couples? It was a private function organised by a club or business for a pre-booked event, not couples wandering in off the street, but the food was cooked by their regular kitchen.
Transport

Buses outside take you back uphill past the high walls of the famous Kensal Green cemetery. Make sure you get the right bus to Kensal Green. Cross the lights going uphill. We took one bus which went left at the lights, another took us right at the lights, and we found a hug complex with a hidden Sainsbury's supermarket, which would have been handy another time but not when we were trying to catch the last train.

Dock kitchen

Portobello Docks, 342-344 Ladbroke Grove, London W10 5BU

Phone:020 8962 1610.

www.dockkitchen.co.uk

.

Their online menu says: £24.50 for three course set menu on Mondays.

Wine Society
Gunnels Wood Road,
Stevenage, Hertfordshire, SG1 2BT
Enquiries: 01438 741177
thewinesociety.com

It costs £40 to join the Wine Society for life but you get a £20 voucher to spend on their wines in shop or on line, and you can take one or more people who are not members to free and paid-for events - just apply for tickets.   

Gilbert's at Grimsdyke Hotel

The public car park overlooking a vista of London is opposite the grand entrance to Grimsdyke hotel, one of my favourite restaurants in the area and the one with the best historic associations. The former home of Gilbert of Gilbert and Sullivan fame offers lunches at a modest price. Unfortunately they seem to have discontinued the loyalty card scheme before I had reached enough stamps on my cards to earn a free meal. Never mind. It's still great value, under £50 for two for lunch in a grand building. I chose to sit by the grand fireplace adorned with funny figures of impish monkeys - maybe. I did not look too closely. For some reason, like a homing pigeon, I veered towards a particular table, probably because that's where I sat last time, tucked in a cosy corner, allowing my companion to sit in the room with a wider view out through the windows to the trees beyond.

My companion was driving and frugally declined drinking alcohol throughout January, recovering from Xmas excess on the five days eating what you like, two days dieting regime. Men have 600 calories on the diet days, women 500, he told me. But he postponed his food diet. 

I indulged in a glass of prosecco at about £6 for 125 ml, quite enough, rather than a larger glass of Champagne or Pino Grigio or rosada. The wine waiter asked if we wanted a bottle of wine. My host declined. The wine waiter whisked away our glasses,  but our waiter kindly said, 'to stop you being bothered later by anybody asking if you want wine'. How tactful, making it sound as he was doing us a favour. 

White rolls and brown arrived in a basket. I chose the brown roll with walnuts and raisins. The rolls were hot, and the butter was salty and tasty.

A jug of water was brought without us needed to ask.

As a starter we both chose the chicken and lentils. Elegantly presented on an oblong plate. The lentils were lightly spiced, very flavourful.

The main course could have been chicken but we'd just had chicken so I opted for duck. It was prettily fanned on the plate. The potato daughinoise was a block like a small brick. Spinach, dark green, and carrots a colourful orange were a pleasing contrast.

My companion's 'sustainable fish' was sea bream. We amused ourselves joking about how long the fish was sustained before reaching our plate. His potatoes were new, which sounded healthy, but turned out to be less healthy looking but more attractive with a sauté or grilled outside.

I especially liked the look of my companion's vegetables,  green beans threaded through a hole in what could have been a short tube of  cucumber or aubergine. I could copy that idea at home for a special occasion, and it would remind me of lunching at Gilbert's restaurant.

I had my leftovers from the main course wrapped up to take away, as we say in England. (If Americans are reading this, you would say wrapped up to go.) My leftovers came back wrapped in tin foil.  I was saving room for dessert.

Desserts were not quite as pretty at the previous courses. An unremarkable rice pudding, and a pleasant creamy lemon syllabub. They could have been improved by a contrasting garnish.

The only improvement I would like to see is the appearance of the staff areas behind the doors off the dining room. Peeling paint on a wall near a staircase alongside the cashier's area by the restaurant's main door did not impress. They must have staff who could fix that at minimal cost.

However, as Shakespeare said, all's well that ends well. My double espresso coffee came in Steelite crockery with a jug of milk and the brown sugar was cubed - so smart. Best of all a good truffle encased in dark chocolate.