Gordo's Bits And Bobs 02/09/2011

Sleuth's away. Here's Gordo's bits and bobs...

Best meal in a jar or Jessica Lowe loves Gordo: THE PROOF

Cassoulet, Get Now FolksGordo looked in the cupboard at home and it was bare. Apart from a nearly out of date jar of cassoulet from Harvey Nichols. Gordo doesn’t do food out of jars or tins (apart from very good anchovies and Heinz baked beans, but he livens them up with a splosh of Heinz tomato sauce and six or seven splashes of Worcester) but having had a pint or six of the guest bitter at Gaslamp, he was passing out with hunger.

Coming back to that cassoulet, it was the best he'd eaten in a long time. To show that Gordo takes his superlatives seriously, the fat one took a side trip to Toulouse a couple of weeks later and tried the house speciality at Les Jardins de l'Opéra on the main square. It was dry, horrible and a piss-take.

Jessica Lowe Loves GordoJessica Lowe, one of only five PR girlies allowed in ManCon Towers in Spinningfields, and secretly in love with Fatty, has sent him pictures of the cassoulet, priced at £12.95. A bargain, the Toulouse sausage and duck legs melt in your mouth and the overall flavours are heavenly.

And the proof of that love? Take a look at the previously received picture from the fragrant one…

Gaslamp

As a side issue, Gordo took the Chairman, Shagger Sharrock, down to Gaslamp last night and drank the Partridge best bitter by Dark Star brewery. It was wonderful. Mind you the very good looking barmaid didn’t seem to take to Shagger, which isn’t surprising, after his knee operation he’s got a face like a bulldog chewing a wasp; and gave bugger all as a tip.

Kentucky Chicken on steroids: Southern 11

Chicken Heaven At Southern 11Southern 11 is a new restaurant in Spinningfields. It specialises in Yankee nosh. Gordo has been there three times since it opened four or five weeks ago, the first two times, eating under pressure on both occasions as people were turning up late for the cinema and Gordo and grandson Harry were panicking. The card kept getting knocked back as well, doubly annoying. The food was a blur, but noticeably different to what he was expecting, which was grits and greasy fried chicken.

Last Thursday, Gordo was in London with Ruth Allen reviewing the latest flavour of the month, Hedoni. All she could talk about was just how faithful the Southern 11 cooking was to genuine American southern state cuisine; she thought it fantastic.

Snackette Of Nachos A La Southern 11So Gordo nipped in on Tuesday for a quick nosebag on his own. Nachos with guacamole, cheese (amazingly a red Leicester which is three times the price of that plastic rubbish the rest of them pass off to us) and a zingy salsa. Then that chicken with creamy potatoes and white chicken gravy. The chickens are supplied by Reg up at Goosnargh (Gordo checked for porkies) and the crunchy coating, spiced brilliantly, is dead sexy.

Gordo is now wondering which bird to get stuck into next, Allen or Reg’s? On reflection, Reg’s will definitely be all the sweeter for not being able to answer back.

Go. Now. That’s it, RFN. Right Fuckin’ Now.

The Swedish Chef

The Swedish Chef's MackeralGoing back to the trip to Hedoni’s, down in That There London; it’s a Scandinavian feller as the chef. 1200 years ago they used to be known as rapists with bad hats and axes. It appears they have calmed down since then. He is, apparently, a gifted chef. Lauded by Time Out (5 stars), Fay Maschler (well respected critic at the Evening Standard) and Gordo’s personal favourite, Nicholas Lander at the FT. Gordo thought the place was terrific, the service exemplary, the food showing great promise and the Chef a boring miserable twat.

Fatty had asked for a picture with the leader of the Norse Gods.

“Ooh,” says the delightful (and fit as a butcher’s dog) French waitress, “’e doesn’t like having his picture taken”…

Gordo finally gets Mr Personality at his table.

Rum Babas“No, I am a bit too tired to have my picture taken I am afraid. I don’t like the press; I have had a terrible experience ever since Fay Maschler and Lander wrote about us.”

“I read those”, says the balding fat one, “they were terrific and Lander in particular is a really good judge in my opinion”.

“Well, there is the problem,” replies Odin, “the phone never stopped ringing and we are now booked up weeks ahead and its terribly busy and I have no time to myself, it’s just all so depressing.”

His shoulders slumped across the table like a Gerald Scarfe cartoon.

Gordo knows what most chefs will be thinking.

Go and get a fucking life you silly bastard.

                  Meat, meat, sighGordo and some Very Hard Core Porn in Smoak at Malmaison

Gordo has eaten in Smoak at Malmaison two or three times and has been taken with the quality of meat, hard and raw, on display in its own cabinet. The boys buy full steak pieces on the bone and hang them themselves from four to five weeks in the display cabinets, then get the butcher in to pull them down into the constituents parts, including Gordo’s favourite, the 500g sirloin on the bone.

Have a look at the picture, Gordo apologises, but after owning his own hard core porn TV station in the nineties, the infamous Red Hot Dutch, he feels a lot better now he has found a substitute.

And Finally @GailSully shocks us all

The Sully'sGail Sullivan, radio presenter and all round good egg, tweets Gordo asking for a recommendation for breakfast one Saturday morning. She turns up at Cicchetti as well, but what’s this, she’s been breeding? Dangerous. Love the kid, one of the best of its kind. Fast asleep.

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