training – Chanters Lodge Livingstone

Dinner at The Mandarin Oriental Hyde Park

A long, long time ago I did my bar training at the Hyde Park Hotel in Knightsbridge. It is of course now known as the Mandarin Oriental Hyde Park (above) and is home to Dinner Heston Blumenthal’s latest restaurant. So, this piece in Hotel Chatter obviously caught my attention – more especially as my son Jan is the newly appointed Head Chef at The Penny Black restaurant in Fulham Road London, opening next week. We certainly hope his advance bookings are as good as Heston’s!

Heston Blumenthal’s new restaurant Dinner has already been named “best new restaurant in the world” by restaurant critic Giles Coren in The Times. London’s most eagerly awaited restaurant located in the Mandarin Oriental Hyde Park only opened its doors last week but it’s already fully booked until the end of May.

Not surprising as the reviewers and bloggers have wasted no time gushing over the medieval menu which features Meat Fruit – a chicken liver dish shaped like a plastic mandarin, Powdered Duck, Spiced Pigeon and Tipsy Cake, a “spit-roast pineapple” (ooh-err). To see the full menu, head over to the restaurant’s website. Yes, a lot of it sounds pretty gross, but then, so did most of his molecular gastronomy stuff that we tried at the Fat Duck (his flagship restaurant in Bray, Berkshire), and it was nothing less than amazeballs. Plus, there’s always chips for those who like to play it safe.

The Telegraph’s critic rated it 10/10, Londonist agreed with Coren, Time Out gave it four out of five stars, and even the Guardian thought the food was worth paying for.

Which leads us on to the price. Dinner at Dinner isn’t cheap, but it’s not half as bad as we feared. Starters run from £12.50 and most main courses are around the £30 mark. Desserts are from £8, and sides are a ridiculously cheap £4. The wine’s not horrific, either: from £35 a bottle. As we said, not a night out for when the budget’s tight, but the prices are in line with other posh London restaurants. And by way of comparison, the famed 13 course tasting menu at the Fat Duck costs £160 per head.

But there’s an amazing deal if you can’t splash out on dinner: a three course set lunch for just £28. Yup, £28. Available Monday to Friday, 12-2.30pm. There are two choices for each course: lemon salad or “ragoo of pigs’ ears” to start, cured salmon or roast quail for your main, and chocolate wine or orange buttered loaf for dessert.

You need to plan ahead, though. According to the website, Dinner is now booked up until the end of May, and they’ll be opening up reservations for June on 1 March. If you need to get in before then, you can apply to be on the waiting list or, if desperation calls, you can buy other people’s rezzies on eBay. When we checked, the highest price was £62 although one sold last week for just short of £100.

18
FEB

family, hotels, London, restaurants, richard, training

Mao Kasonso

“Some say he’s recently been in UK working as ‘The Stig’ others that he built Victoria Falls, all we know is that he’s called Mao!” I declared, when I was asked by Milli Jam to introduce our guest on the most recent edition of The Chanters Lodge Experience with The Milli Jam Ingredient featuring George da Soulchild. That’s our regular weekly Sunday night radio show airing at 20.30 hrs on Zambezi Radio 107.7 fm, Livingstone’s best loved local radio station. Why start like that? Well Mao Kasonso, in the picture above, to the right of George da Soulchild, is well known on Facebook and people often do Clarksonesque things with his name on that site. Anyway my intro took everyone by surprise, got a good laugh and got our show off to a happy start.

It was for us a ground breaking show, not only did we feature three international No 1 hits, but for the first time we had an additional guest interview by phone from Lusaka. This featured Mr Vezzy aka Lang’a Mweene, a musician with a smash hit in Zambia on his hands – ‘Imma Bad Boy’ – which we played on the show (for the second time). Lang’a talked to us mid-way through the show when Milli Jam asked him about his work, his music, his family and his ambitions – it went down well with the listening audience. I asked him how long he’d been on Twitter and what he thought about it. He replied “about 3 months and it’s the world”. More evidence, if it was needed, that Twitter’s popularity continues to grow in Zambia.

Mao Kasonso our studio guest is a well known figure in Livingstone. He was a club DJ at The Fairmount Hotel in his younger days and then for many years was employed by Radio Mosi-o-Tunya, starting as a volunteer and working his way up to become Head of Production. At Radio Mosi-o-Tunya Mao hosted a weekly show as well as managing his administrative duties. The station is a Catholic Church owned community service radio station and Livingstone’s other local radio station. “What are you doing now?” Milli Jam asked our guest, who went on to explain that he’s currently studying a one and a half year business management course. He has an ambition to set up his own radio station in the future and we wouldn’t bet against that. Vibrant, intelligent and hard working speak for themselves!

The music on the show was excellent – as mentioned we featured three international number one hits: Kenny Chesney’s ‘Somewhere With You’ – currently top of the US country charts. Britney Spears with ‘Hold It Against Me’ charted at number one in the US pop charts last week and ‘Who’s That Girl’ by Guy Sebastian featuring Eve – the Australian number one. In this regard I told listeners how we’d received blog comments querying our lack of knowledge about Guy on the previous week’s show! We all agreed that the track was excellent and we were happy to have aired it for the first time on radio in Zambia. Together with these smash hits we featured Jennifer Lopez and Pitbull with ‘On The Floor’, Lady Gaga’s ‘Animal’ and Ty2 featuring Scarlet with ‘Desire’ this last number the second of our two local tracks. Milli Jam chose a Nigerian track ‘Jupka’ by J Martins.

Mao greeted his wife and family at home, especially his 3 children Geen 10, Ben 5 and Melinda 2.5 and told listeners that he didn’t like football but loved music, particularly pop, rock and dance and that his favourite track at the moment was ‘Hello’ by Martin Solveig and Dragonette. We gave listeners their regular chart news – featuring for the first time the USA Ringtones Charts – that caught listeners’ interest.

Appropriately the question we asked for the prize dinner for two was ‘tell us the 3 letter name of this week’s guest on the show’ and ‘Mao’ was quickly texted and the winner rewarded!

25
JAN

Africa, Australia, Chanters, entertainment, leadership, management, music, People, radioshow, training, Zambia

Elisabeth Gaarder & Xenia Ploger

“We’ve never done it before and we’re very nervous” said Elisabeth (left) and Xenia pictured above, as we headed towards our Sunday night assignation in my car. “Don’t worry, it’s fun and very nice” I replied “just sit back and enjoy it”. Thinking something different? Tut tut! Actually, we were heading towards the studios of Zambezi Radio 107.7 fm in Livingstone, Zambia, for the latest edition of The Chanters Lodge Experience with the Milli Jam Ingredient featuring George Da Soulchild, as the girls were guesting for us on the show! Elisabeth and Xenia are part of a team of 5 Norwegian 3rd year Tromso University students staying at Chanters Lodge, while they teach pre-school children for a month at Rainbow School in Livingstone, as part of their university course. Our radio show goes out live every Sunday evening between 20.30 and 21.30 hrs, and features music and chat.

“Do you have boyfriends back in Norway”? Milli Jam asked the girls. “What boyfriends”? This made George on technical pay attention and he played ‘Chipyango’ by Dalisoul. The girls were rocking. “They seem to like that number”. I remarked. “I know they do!” Replied George, laughing. “Have you been clubbing every weekend while you’ve been in Livingstone”? Milli Jam enquired. “Oh yes”! Elisabeth and Xenia replied, also laughing, and I knew instantly how George Da Soulchild knew the girls liked Dalisoul!! “What’s the track about”? I wanted to know. “He’s telling girls not to allow themselves to be treated like a local broom – used once, then ditched”. Was the succinct reply. I speculated that the Chanters Girls would have been dancing to that track back at the lodge too, and I think I was right! The other Zambian number we played on the show was a coup – UZ47 with ‘Killa Love’ – first ever airing of the track on radio anywhere in Zambia! Well done George! Our expert on the local music scene.

We played ‘Gone’ by Nelly and Kelly, as well as ‘Shine A Light’ – McFly ft Taio Cruz. Milli Jam selected an old favourite Chaka Khan – ‘Ain’t Nobody’ and Dr Dre’s latest – ‘Kush’ – that was a nice one! ‘Like A G6’ – Far East Movement and ‘The Flood’ by Take That proved we’re right up to date on the Chanters Lodge Experience!

“What activities have you done since you’ve been in Livingstone”? Milli Jam asked our Guests, “apart from clubbing”? The girls told listeners they’d been to Chobe National Park in Botswana for a 2 day 1 night safari the first weekend they’d been in Zambia, and had really enjoyed the trip despite the scary insects! That afternoon they’d had high tea on Livingstone Island and swum in Devil’s Pool. They’d loved it! One of the girls had also flown in a microlight over Victoria Falls on the ‘Flight Of Angels’ and one intended to go Bungee Jumping. “It’s all scary” they commented, laughing at the same time.

The girls explained to listeners that they’d known each other since they were in high school, aged 15 or so, and that they shared a house in Tromso while they were studying, although they were both originally from Oslo. Neither of them had been to Africa before but they’d both travelled widely through Europe. The future immediately after leaving University? They weren’t sure. Longer term? Marriage and children seemed to be on both their agendas. “Better start looking for boyfriends soon then” I remarked, to in-studio laughter.

We gave away our usual dinner for two to the first person to text us the name of the country the girls hailed from and there was a huge response. ‘Nowe’ was one of them! Great that so many people were listening to the show! George, a Liverpool supporter, wanted to talk about football in general and Arsenal in particular, but Milli Jam and I did not!

A good time was had by all, and of course there had been no need for the girls to be nervous!

23
NOV

accommodation, activities, Africa, Arsenal, Botswana, Chanters, education, music, radioshow, staff, training, victoriafalls, volunteers, wildlife, Zambia

Success For Tiverton Catering Students

I liked this story by Lewis Clarke on Tiverton People Why? Well…

Petroc is the combined North and East Devon Technical Colleges. My late father taught at the East Devon Technical College in Tiverton, Devon, my home town, after he retired from the staff of Blundells School. Then of course I’ve been in the catering business throughout my career and have always taken a close interest in staff training. To top it all, I happen to have been a friend of Rick Stein’s when we were in the same house at Uppingham School in the 60’s.

Well done to the students concerned! (From left to right above): Basking in glory – Joe Martin, Jim Smith and Lloyd Gribble outside the Exe Restaurant at Petroc in Tiverton. Here’s the piece:

“Two young catering & hospitality students from Petroc in Tiverton have just been offered the kind of jobs that could sky-rocket their careers to success. Following two weeks of work experience over Easter at the famous Seafood Restaurant in Padstow, seventeen year old Joe Martin from Uffculme has been offered a job to join Rick Stein’s team when he completes his course in July. Lloyd Gribble, 18, from Tiverton, has also landed himself a top job following his week of work experience over Easter at Somerset’s Award Winning ‘Dining Pub of the Year’ – Woods in Dulverton.

The pair had worked hard throughout the year and earned their work experience – while on their work placement, they impressed, and have now been offered their dream jobs. Whilst at The Seafood Restaurant, Joe was working under the expert supervision of Head Chef Stephane Delourne and 2008 Master Chef Winner and former barrister, James Nathan.

Before starting his job in July, Joe will spend a week at the Michelin starred Castle Hotel in Taunton under the expert supervision of Richard Guest. Joe said: “When Head Chef Stephane offered me the job I accepted immediately, I was delighted. I can’t wait to start in July. I couldn’t believe how friendly everyone at Rick Stein’s was.”

Lloyd has been offered a full time job by Paddy Groves, owner of the renowned Woods in Dulverton. He said: “I was so impressed by how organised the kitchen was, it was great. Once I’ve finished my Level 3 qualification in July I’ll be starting at Woods.” Jim Smith – Chef Lecturer at Petroc, who had organised the work experience for Joe and Lloyd through his connections said: “It’s fantastic that both the lads did so well.

“Both Rupert Wilson the general manager at Rick Stein’s and Paddy Groves the owner of Woods had nothing but praise for our students and that makes me very proud. “We hope that this is the start of a good relationship between the college and these businesses.”

21
APR

education, food, restaurants, staff, training, uk

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