Slow Life Blog from the Lake District
  • Home
  • About Me
  • Contact Me

Gordon Ramsay in Tokyo

9/5/2012

0 Comments

 
Picture
It can be sobering to see how others see us. Last year in Japan everyone was asking about the riots. They could understand why the Greeks or the Spanish would protest in the streets against their government’s austerity measures but they were non-plussed by news footage of the British going on the rampage just for the fun of it. This year the Japanese are equally puzzled by the news reports that it can take 3 hours to get through immigration control at Heathrow.

We may try to persuade the Japanese that British streets aren’t really unruly and that our civil servants aren’t bolshie and inept, but one image which it’s almost impossible to throw off is our reputation for bad food.

You’d have thought that now that our top chefs have international reputations our image would be improving but that doesn’t seem to be the case. A clue as to why this might be can be found at Gordon Ramsay’s Cerise restaurant at the Conrad Hotel in Tokyo. The restaurant is part fine dining and part bistro and I ate in the informal part, where it’s mainly soup, sandwiches and pasta. There’s nothing more British than a sandwich, although my choice of a Chivito on ciabatta with filet mignon (£25) was a curious mix of Uruguayan, Italian and French, with “fried slab-cut potatoes” on the side, which may have been British and were authentically hard and drenched in salt. The meal was dire, not worthy of British pub-grub, although come to think of it, it was very much on a par with Ramsay’s Foxtrot Oscar pub in Chelsea. None of the staff when I ate there were Japanese- they seemed to be from the Indian sub-continent and Africa, but perhaps that was an attempt to give the place an authentic British flavour. They were as inept, but not quite as unwelcoming, as a Heathrow border control officer.
​
Perhaps I should have chosen the fine dining part of Cerise, although a glance at the reviews on Tripadvisor would suggest otherwise. I’m afraid that there’s no hope for the reputation of British food in Tokyo if this anything to go by.
0 Comments



Leave a Reply.


    ​About Slow Life

    The idea of Slow Life is to take the principles of Slow Food, which are “good, clean and fair”, and extend them to life in general.

    Here in the Lake District, the air is clean, the pace is slow and the atmosphere is calm. If we don’t grow food ourselves, we can buy it in friendly small shops, where you know the quality is going to be the best.

    This blog is a celebration of the Slow Life, with forays into the world of design, music, the arts, gardens, and my particular weakness, Japan.

    Archives

    June 2017
    December 2016
    August 2015
    May 2015
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    October 2012
    September 2012
    August 2012
    July 2012
    June 2012
    May 2012
    April 2012
    March 2012
    February 2012
    January 2012
    December 2011
    November 2011
    October 2011
    September 2011
    August 2011
    July 2011
    June 2011
    May 2011
    April 2011
    March 2011
    February 2011
    January 2011
    December 2010
    November 2010
    October 2010
    September 2010
    August 2010
    July 2010
    June 2010
    May 2010
    April 2010
    March 2010
    February 2010
    January 2010
    December 2009
    November 2009
    October 2009

    RSS Feed

Home   |   About Me   |   Contact Me

Jonathan Denby's Slow Life blog from the Lake District

© Copyright Slow Life 2020. All rights reserved   |   cookie policy    |   Site by Treble3
  • Home
  • About Me
  • Contact Me