COMPETITION

Damning

with praise

J aspistos

IN Competition No. 1497 you were asked for an enthusiastic description by an eating-out columnist of a meal in an imaginary new restaurant, the words to have, on the discriminating reader, an off-putting effect.

In Edward Lear's 'The Cummerbund: an Indian Poem' two strangely prescient lines occur:

And all night long the Mussak moan'd Its melancholy tone.

Restaurant music was clearly your chief hate. My own method of dealing with it is to ask, hand on ear, if they'd mind turning it off because I'm deaf and can't hear my companion's words very well. Embarras- sed, they comply. Perhaps the next day it strikes them that my request lacked logic and my subsequent behaviour consistency. As some people collect the names of water closets, so do I note down unappetising restaurant names. The two that took the weevilled biscuit were an extrovert Strine caff called The Yodelling Sausage and a sad run-down establishment for extremely distressed gentlefolk called The Benighted Tinker. I live near London's first and possibly last Ethiopian restaurant, but after you, Nigella. A good week, but too many let irony positively glare through naïve enthusiasm. If Basil Ransome-Davies's Chez Ken, where 'all meals are served from unlabel- led tins opened at the table' (cuisine aleatoire) with its 'amusingly eclectic decor (basically Hawaiian/Danish)', was a bad dream, Jeremy Condliffe's Cymbelinn, where 'drinking two halves of lager in traditional jugs, we were led to our table by Puck', was a credible daymare. The winners printed below get £18 each, and the bonus bottle of Champagne Palmer Vintage 1979, presented by Marie-Pierre Palmer-Becret, goes to John P. Harris for his cross-Channel horror.

Enfin it Paris, un restaurant vraiment anglais le Sweeney Todd's! Mr Todd lui-meme, tits gay, tres punk, vous sert en amuse-gueule le baked beans on toast, sorte de cassoulet ethni- que sur un canope d'Auntie's Joy grille (cette

substance exotique arrive par Sealink tour les 15 jours). Puis la specialite: le spud and gristle pasty, robuste mais indefinissable creation arro- see de bisto gravy, la sauce rustique qu'adore la Dame de Fer, parait-il. Avec cela, encore des carres d'Auntie's Joy, tartines d'un exquis melange de beurre neo-zelandais et de veritable margarine de Liverpool. La boisson obligatoire, c'est le the au lait, servi genereusement sucre dans un mug authentique. On se croirait chez Sir Benn ou Sir Heath! Puis un factory fruit tart avec ce que Mr Todd appelle le `quioustarde d'oiseaux'. (Mais l'ai-je bien compris? La misi- que, un album de la Lewisham Nuclear-Free Zone Muggers' Collective, etait delicieusement forte.) (John P. Harris) Conceived by a recently retired stockbroker, Porsche 'n' Tears offers a revolutionary new restaurant system to its young City clientele.

`After analysing traditional restaurant prac- tice, I concluded that most restaurants are too inflexible to respond quickly enough to today's market forces,' says owner Ron Egonay. His innovative response is to offer superb meals on a bid basis, with current meal prices listed on a fast-changing blackboard. With each meal in- cluding a guaranteed seat, there is also an instant re-sale market, allowing diners to re-sell their meal in response to price fluctuations. There is also a meal futures market for the experienced diner.

`Good food is only a small part of our total leisure package,' says Egonay. 'Here the diner also has the opportunity to speculate, not merely to minimise the cost of his meal, but also to take advantage of short-term investment possibili- ties.' (Niall Litton)

I was no fan of in-flight food until alighting on `Pie in the Sky'. This international eatery on the Great West Road, catering to the faddiest victim of airlines' over-booking, improves on the hack- neyed revolving restaurant with an 'aviation- simulator'. Perhaps in consequence 'mit Schlag' is a leitmotiv.

Portions are distinctly dainty. But then air- lines long anticipated French sophistos in serv- ing nouvelle cuisine. Try salmagundi a la Mosko- wa — tiny diced vegetables smothered in a rich ivory-hued sauce with a whisper of hen's egg and citron. The glazed rolls are almost too decora- tive to eat. And the doigt d'asperge en gelee on its honest peasant pumpernickel bed forms a memorable overture to the entrecôte a pois vests. No need for the cunningly denticulated knives in plasti-resin. This dish — so tender as to be effete — almost decomposes in the mouth.

(Charles Mosley)

From the moment you enter the door to the sound of Bert Kampfaert's 'Swinging Safari', Pith Helmets, London's latest eating place, aims to recreate the genuine African effect.

The menu is short but choice. Starters include Masai's Milk (equal proportions of blood and milk left in a hot sun for two days) and Posho, Kikuyu maize meal porridge with its delicate texture of sponge. Main dishes include scrag end of goat, maize and beans or snake stew. The latter is cunningly marinated in chillies for tenderising, but still retains an authentic bite.

With its admirable boycott of South African goods, the wine list is restricted to four wines from Madagascar (labels in Afrikaans, sadly, for their South African sales), but all are excellent.

Cost: £64 for two, and the Maitre d', amusing- ly dressed as a freedom fighter, seals a memor- able experience by presenting the bill with a