Debbie does Dining

Angelic?: York & Albany, Regent's Park

It's easy to get fed up with Gordon Ramsay. For a start, there's his nervy way of hopping from foot to foot, his flamboyant sociopathy, his 100-mile-an-hour delivery of a three-comment repertoire ('F**k me!, Big boy, and YES?, appended to every sentence like a proprietary copyright mark). I've met parrots with a greater range. I'm even sick of his stupid wrinkly face, and if he ever takes his shirt off on telly again, I'm writing to Ofcom.

Oven restored! Spice cake recipe

I can't tell you how long I've been without an oven - because it's, frankly, far too embarrassing. Let's just put it this way: I am now a bloody EXPERT at making stews. If you can fry it, boil it, simmer it, sautee it or bung it in a Breville, I'm your girl. But the doors to the delights of bakery and roastery have been firmly shut.

No longer!

Irregular shape due to snacking on the cake while cooking supper …

DDD is 100 + exciting news

Mes chers amis.

It would seem that I have reached the grand old age of 100 posts. Unbelievable. It's been a fair old ride. In the personal highlights scrapbook, I cast a teary and nostalgic eye over a couple of exceptional brunches (here and here), some truly weird products (this, these and - oh god - these), a truly epic and heated debate and too many restaurants to choose between - as well as some needlessly graphic venison.

In its 9 brief months of existence, dear old DDD has been quoted on the websites of some of my favourite shows: Answer Me This and Dammit Let's Eat (where I also appeared on my first podcast), as well as Top Things To Do. 

To celebrate this momentous centenary, we can finally bid farewell to trying to remember the dot, uh, something, typepress, dot, uk or something (though that'll still work) - and go straight as an arrow to my brand spanking new web address:

www.debbiedoesdining.com

I know. We're all excited. Bookmark the bugger, would you?

So, I embark on the next 100 posts with a spring in my step, and open arms. Please do do do let me know what you like and what you don't, what you'd like more of or less of, and anything you'd like me to review. If anyone sends me an exiting product I'll joyfully respond in kind.

You can contact me by posting a comment on the blog, or emailing debbie@debbiedoesdining.com. I'm also now on Twitter (ddoesdining) though I can't say I like it much.

And finally, thank you very much for reading. It means a lot. x

The faraway bistro: Villandry, Noho

Villandry is all things to all people, as long as those people know where to look. This Faraway Tree of food (Google it) is tucked away just to the side of the beaten track, behind the BBC and the RIBA, below Regent's Park, above Oxford Street and surrounded by anonymous businesses and inconsequential shops.

But should you make tracks to this inauspicious address, you may find exactly what you wish for - or get into an awful scrape.

Weird candy: AUSTRALIA

Australia, like the past, is another country. Ever since we shipped our delinquent poor to those distant shores, so laying the roots for a mighty nation and decades of blush-inducing sporting defeats, we have recognised that they Do Things Differently There. They're kinda British - but with a spin (and I'm not just talking about Shane Warne).

They surf. They drink chilled lager. They make kooky films about dancing and loneliness. They barbecue. Ok there's a lot of intra-familial strife (according to this documentary I've been watching called 'Home and Away'), but even their animals have built-in pockets. Now THAT's casual. But what of their snacking items - does the Antipodean pioneer spirit prevail, or is their thinking just upside-down?

Weird candy: ASIA

People say that necessity is the mother of invention, but if you examine the family tree carefully, it's actually Japan. Those crazy kids down Asia way leave no stone unturned in their search for a new product. Rubber sushi? You got it. Schoolgirl underwear vending machines? No problem. Self-inflating digital vasectomy booths? Would you like cream with that? (I made that last one up)

So with the design skills of a whole host of angels and the consumer focus of a robot geisha on a coke binge, what can Japan come up with for the sweet toothed? I'll tell you what - and it involves collagen marshmallows, jelly-filled pillows and explosions …