Restaurant Review: Malmaison

Although I usually try to avoid restaurant situated in hotels, there are exceptions!

I went to Malmaison last week for a lunch and it's Smithfields best guarded secret: tucked away in a courtyard there's an address with delicate food, ideal for business lunches. Extensive wine card too. I had monkfish sliced very thinly, nice and firm over an tasty risotto. The oxcheek was apparently delicious too and the Savigny les Beaunes 2005 was a good choice.

Club Gascon is still my first choice in the neighboorhood, but as it's overbooked I am sure I'll come back to Malmaison!

Malmaison, Charterhouse Square, EC1M 6AH
020 7012 3700


http://www.malmaison.com


Toptable review: toptable.co.uk/venues/restaurants/?id=1957

Tags: London, restaurant, Barbican, Farringdon, French, richmondtransits.blog, review,

RTT on White Hart Lane level crossing

The Richmond and Twickenham Times has just published an article on the White Hart Lane level crossing.

Network Rail is "thinking about" a bridge (£25k, peanuts compared to the useless repaving of downtown Richmond) and Con. Trigg said "it's a difficult problem to solve". I think it;s quite simple in fact: here are the comments I've posted on their web site:

I've blogged numerous times on the North Sheen crossing which is equally dangerous: only last week a vehicule came stuck in the barrier which caused traffic mayhem all around.

The options offered are just lame: yes, a footbridge would be good, closing the crossing would just cripple the area.

I've travelled a lot in Europe and never saw level crossing in urban areas: are they more clever?

But the real solution would be to either bury the train line underground (expensive but the resulting free land overground could be part sold for profil and converted into commuters parking to incitate people to leave their car and travel green) or digging a road mini-tunnel.

Seriously.

Tags: level, crossing, railways, sheen, richmondtransits.blog, transportation, trains

Non-reparable household goodies aren't green

Following the comment of Mike on my previous post (Richmond Transits: Free marketing advice for Dualit), here's some more advice for them:

when doing brand extension (like the low-end SoftTouch), make sure the new products abide by the same brand values. After all, I always say that marketing is a promise, and if you market stuff that robs the customer perception your overall brand is devalued. Just go and ask Mercedes-Benz what they think about it after they had quality issues in the 80ies...

Also, if you're not green the consumers will lash back. It is my personal prediction that non reparable goods will be seen as non-green and won't be able to attract a premium. As the market will fork, consumers will buy Miele or chinese washing machines, little in between. So, sort out your after-sales and make your stuff fixable.

Manufacturers supply chain will also need some attention, and that's potentially a financial gain: as James puts it here, Green is a form of Lean