"I'll Just have half a bottle of Blue Nun"

As said Alan Partridge when asked to choose a bottle of wine for his disastrous meal with the Head of BBC programming. I have to admit that my choice of beverage is a little more refined than Blue Nun!

It's a funny thing though, how we decide what to drink when matching it with a meal. For example, I would never have wine with curry. That is strictly a beer domain. On the other hand, I would never have beer with Italian food, always red wine.

When I was in America I took to having cocktails with my food, e.g. a Whisky Sour with my steak or a Mint Julep with my southern fried chicken. Perhaps it was because they were cheaper there and they make them so much better than they do here.

But I think what it really comes down to is that we like to re-enact scenarios when we partake of food and drink together. So if I was eating a thin crust pizza topped with pepperoni, I instinctively want to match it with a nice Chianti and imagine myself in some traditional trattoria in Naples with checked table cloths and opera music playing.

On a final note, something I never understand is men who have pints of beer or bitter with a three course meal, be it French, Modern European or British when everyone else is drinking wine. A pint has its place with food and preferably that is in a country pub with a ploughman's. Is it because they see drinking a glass of wine as effeminate? Get over it. And don't give me this "I don't like wine" nonsense. All wines taste different.

No, it all comes back to Alan Partridge...the sort of man who would prefer a nice big pint of Directors with his farfalle pasta, or action man bow-ties as he calls them. Remember this the next time you match a pint of Fosters with your slowly poached wild sea bass in a sea urchin and vermouth sauce!

Muffin top

I have a bit of a muffin top at the moment. Maybe it's the result of too many summer beers or the the fact that the subsidised staff canteen in my new job is a novelty that hasn't worn off yet.

However, I do like the term muffin top. I have the excellent Australian comedy, Kath and Kim, to thank for that particular term. And I loooove Kath and Kim. In fact right now I am enjoying some "wine time", much in the style of those antipodean "foxymorons".

What I especially love is their excellent quotes. Consider these:

Kim: Here's your statue, Mum.
Kath: Oh, what for the love of God is that?
Kim: It's the statue you wanted.
Kath: What? No it's not, Kim.
Kim: Yes it is, it's a statue of little baby cheeses.
Kath: Little baby cheeses? Oh little baby *Jesus*, Kim, *Jesus*

Sharon: I've taken up golf, Mrs D.
Kath: Oh really?
Sharon: Yeah. Me and the girls are going down to the Peninsula to play in a tournament.
Kim: Which girls?
Sharon: Oh, you know, K.D., Ellen, Martina. Just the usual gang.

Kim: My marriage is over. O-V-A-H. Over.

Kim: Mum. I don't want to be rich, I want to be effluent!

I don't know whether I am dismayed or happy to hear that they are making a US version of the sitcom, because they may lose all concept of humour or irony in translation or maybe my favourite programme's is going to have a fantastic new incarnation.

I wait with anticipation. But in the meantime..."look at moiye, look at moiye"!

A little bit of spice

How wonderful is curry? I just love, love, love it. It's one of my favourite meals to have out, especially in a social context with lots of friends.

There is nowt better that a group of friends chewing the fat over a heaving table of naans, pilau rice, steaming curries, dahl and Asian larger, as we did with our neighbour last Saturday.

We started the evening off with cocktails in our local posh brasserie, Joanna's. It's a great place to eat as well and their cocktails are sublime. Proper stuff, not all this nonsense with masses of fruit juice, which dilutes the alcohol. We opted for classic and simple - a mint julep, cosmopolitan and mojito.

And then for curry. Everyone has a local curry house they recommend, don't they? Our favourite local place is the Gurkha Cottage, which is actually Nepalese. We always order the same as well. Gurkha chicken, which is a variation on butter chicken, mixed kebab starter, momo balls, rice and sometimes a naan, plus lots of Gurkha beer. As our neighbour is vegan, we ventured into new territory and tried a few select veggie dishes, which were divine.

It's cheap, cheerful and you get a free sherry at the end. It's just the walk back on an incredibly full stomach that's the bugger!

A culinary landscape

I've been celebrating my new found freedom this week, whilst I take a sabbatical between jobs. This offers the opportunity to take advantage of London's rich culinary landscape by partaking of some of my favourite meals out as well as sampling some new restaurants.

I began the week with one of my personal indulgences, which unfortunately Beth doesn't share - dim sum. I always head for the Imperial China in Lisle Street. It's a traditional place, and not quite as glaringly contemporary and trendy as some recent additions to the area but it suits me none the less. You enter over a little wooden bridge spanning a small pond and then indulge yourself in a heady world of succulent steamed char sui buns and a perfectly crisp Vietnamese spring rolls. To me it's perfection.

The next day, my mum and I headed down to the Horniman Museum in Forest Hill and then decided to have lunch at the Rosendale in West Dulwich, voted London's best gastro pub last year. The lunch menu was sufficiently creative and we feasted on a shared platter of barbecued meat and prawns on skewers. The quality was great and washed down with half a Leffe, it certainly hit the spot.

Later in the week Beth had a day off work, and so we ventured into town again. This time our destination was Ottolenghi in Islington, somewhere I had desperately wanted to visit, so much so that I was willing to haul my cookies into North London for the pleasure! Did it live up to expectations? Well the answer is..I don't know! But one thing is certain, the service is crap. We waited ten minutes to be seated in a half filled restaurant, despite there being an abundance of staff. Our anxious looks were ignored, whilst "supposedly" more trendy and affluent North Londoners' needs were swiftly catered for. Eventually we saw them clearing a small table for us, to then see it being nabbed under our noses by someone already seated at the communal table. No apologies, nothing. Were they aware that we were going to probably spend a nice sum of money, plus splash out for a bottle of lunchtime vino? No idea, but somehow I just think our faces didn't fit.

How did it end? We headed down to the safety of South London. Borough Market to be exact. We feasted on chargrilled burgers in Black and Blue and experienced swift, friendly service throughout. And yes the place was full of suits, but it didn't matter, everyone was treated as an equal. As they say "it's grim up North!"