WickedStepmother

Brunost? The bizarre/amazing Norwegian cheese made with condensed milk? They sell that at the Cheese Block? I need to give that place a closer look.

I've eaten at TCC three times since we moved here in early summer and I'd say it's clost to the best Thai restaurant I've eaten at in the UK. The food has been outstanding on each visit, the service has been unfailing friendly and reasonably efficient. My only gripe would be the acoustics and lack of elbow room. (The best UK Thai place I've eaten at is HillTribe in Richmond.)

What about, since there are at least two allotment groups in the area, some traditional 'biggest pumpkin', 'biggest vegetable marrow' 'best tomato crop' 'prize leek' 'knobliest potato' 'most obscene carrot' type contests? Actually, could do the same with baking and jam making. And dahlias. Aren't dahlias actually compulsory at summer fetes? Isn't there a law about that? Anyway, rain or not, I enjoyed myself. Joined the Friends of Peckham Rye Park. Had a fantastic sausage sandwich. But the greyhound should have won the prettiest dog class.

Being relatively new to the area, I can't say for certain that it's the best restaurant in SE London, but I'd like to put in a word for Locale on East Dulwich road. In the few weeks we've been living around the corner we've eaten there three times and been happily impressed each time. Staff are friendly and very on the ball. The decor is relatively upmarket and contemporary but the atmosphere still manages to be unstuffy. (And the lighting is generously soft and flattering to those of us of a certain age. ;-)) The wine list is not enormous but fairly priced. But, most importantly, the food is outstanding. I'm a big fan of calves' liver and at Locale I had the best I've ever eaten anywhere. The steaks have been uniformly excellent and the lamb rump was just as good - the quality of the meat is outstanding and the handling spot on. The other thing that has struck me quite forcibly too is the simple yumminess of their vegetable side dishes. Nothing fancy but they somehow taste wonderfully and intensely of themselves in a way that I've only encountered before in expensive places with stars to their name. (I once had a scallop and cauliflower puree starter at Foliage that fair took my breath away. As he cleared the plates I told the waiter that I had no idea cauliflower could taste so good. "Ah yes madam," he replied with a little wag of his forefinger, "Chef has a way of making you eat your vegetables. So, can have dessert later...") Locale has a way of making you eat your veggies too. Oh, and I can thoroughly recommend the ice cream!

WeeGee, I bought my younger stepson a T-shirt a couple of weeks ago. THought it would tickle his funny bone. "If it's too loud, you're too old!" He thought it was hilarious. His Dad wasn't quite as impressed. ;-)

What I'd love, in fact ABSOLUTELY LOVE, is A) somewhere that's both family-friendly but still kinda funky. Somewhere I could get cool points for taking my nearly-but-not-quite teenage stepsons for lunch on a Saturday. (IE somewhere they're not mortified to be seen by their mates, I'm not mortified by their grubby torn jeans and we all rate the food) B) Somewhere with music that's more than aural wallpaper but not so loud you can't have a conversation about it. C) Somewhere the menu isn't just bog-standard clonepub favourites. Incidentally, re the day-to-evening transition, music is half the battle. The other half is lighting. Oh, and I did come across a bar in Hoxton that uses chainmail curtains to increase its number of semi-private group/conversational spaces in the evenings which seemed to work quite well. And lastly could we please have your new enterprise handily located for the corner of East Dulwich Road and Peckham Rye? Not too much to ask?? ;-)

True enough. I have waaay too much time on my hands today! I think I'll go and pickle something instead... ;-)

You know, you might want to move "kids at private school". Stepson #1 is at a private school but it's a financial stretch - a position I think is common to an awful lot of middle class households.

Making your own picalilli; working class or middle class?

RosieH probably has a point; the owner was curt, miserable, unfriendly and unhelpful. Went in just once and felt so unwelcome I turned on my heel and never went back.

I second that. Friends of ours live just around the corner from the White Hart and it's our regular meeting place. Bags of character and, interestingly, seems to attract people from both the 'indigenous' Crystal Palace population and 'newcomers'.

A bit belated I realise, but has anyone contacted the Horniman Museum to see if they have anything in their own records that might relevant to the building of the church? I'm new to the forum and won't actually be living in ED till January so I'm reluctant to start muscling in on someone else's project, but I'm very happy to do this if no one else wants to? I also have an old university colleague whose thesis, if I remember rightly, involved the Artists Rifles. I'll see if we can dredge up a copy. Oh, and I'd like to donate something towards the wreath too. (Legion poppies and real rosemary perhaps?)

A little off-topic I guess but picking up on the comments above about selling privately, when my partner and I first decided to sell our cottage in Richmond we put it on the market with halfapercent.com (a sort of compromise solution between DIYing and an agent) at the price they recommended: ?350,000. We had around 50 viewings and not a single offer. Almost as soon as we took it off the market, the local branch of Foxtons contacted us. We were rather reluctant to list with them because of their reputation so we procrastinated for a couple of months before deciding to give them a try. They sold it in less than three months for ?397,000. I must admit that for the most part, Foxtons staff were helpful, attentive and agreeable to deal with - greatly to my surprise. We bought our new flat through Winkworths on LL. Our original contact there, Alex, was wonderful. Took time to understand exactly what we were looking for and why. And found us just what we needed. However, he relocated to another office and we found ourselves at the mercy of the rudest, most unpleasant woman it has ever been my misfortune to deal with. Addded to which, it has emerged that she may have advised our vendors to forget about one of the conditional stipulations we made in our offer letter in order to get the sale through more quickly. I'm investigating this with our solicitor now but it's starting to look as though we'll have to file civil damages claims against both the vendors and Winkworths. I don't so much mind about Winkworths but I feel rather sorry for the vendors.

First a disclaimer: I'm new to ED and to the ED Forum and not yet well-versed in the local politics... But... Surely when it comes to mugs of tea or cafe latte, it's not a matter of either/or? There are days when only a humungous steaming mug of tea will do. Preferably with a bacon buttie. And there are times when I want a strong latte and something sweet to to dunk in it. I'm buggered if I can see why I should have to opt for one or the other in perpetuity. Let's have both!