And the starched, brilliant white napkins that seemed bigger and more voluminous than the sheets on our bed. Just like the spaghetti bolognese and chips that lurked beneath those gleaming cloches (cloches that would be simultaneously whipped off in one great theatrical flourish, to the unceasing delight of the grandchildren).
Third-degree burns invariably ensue. Rather than picking up the dumpling with dainty nonchalance, making a small tear with my teeth and letting the hot broth run gently down my throat, I wedge both ends beneath the pastry, and try to scoop it, whole, into my gob.
Regardless of the modern Vietnamese food (her culinary tastes ventured no further east than Italy), the celebrity chef owner, Bobby Chin (‘in my day, cooks cooked, not buggered about on the television’), or Soho location (she never moved east of Oxford Circus), one snippet of the ghastly, ear-assaulting, all-pervasive ‘chill-out’ muzak, and she’d have fled, hands clasped tightly over her Elnett-lacquered hair. In fact, I do, only too well.
Places where one can feast for as little as a tenner per head. Because in London, we’ve been spoilt with cheap, cheerful and downright wonderful Vietnamese food from the likes of Viet Grill, Mien Tay, Song Que and Cay Tre.
The artistry is breathtaking: Susan dissects real flowers when designing her blooms, which are made in heavyweight crepe paper. There are even little nicks in the edges of the petal of the burgundy peony (£65) for added realism. She colours the flowers in pastel, and each petal has subtle fade variations, just like real flowers.
And I’m convinced that somewhere, deep in a minimalist man-cave on some lonely Balearic isle, sits a middle-aged white man with thinning hair and ratty ponytail, clad in baggy white linen, smirking thinly as he releases yet another dose of down-tempo electronic guff onto an all-too-weary world.
Accompanying bird’s eye chillies were wonderfully, searingly hot (so much so that they moved the dish away from the fresh, subtle charms of Vietnamese food and on into rather fiercer, Thai territory), although the blob of minced kumquat did little save uphold this fruit’s position as silliest in the world.
Stephen Hook has to be one of the best dairy farmers in the UK, producing raw, unpasteurised milk (the best I’ve tasted) from a small herd. If you love the taste of real milk, get ordering. A new documentary about him, The Moo Man, is moving and brilliant; it shows how the supermarkets’ idiotic milk policy is destroying our dairy industry.
Which was a shame, as the food – Vietnamese with a first-class, round-the-world air ticket – was mainly good, sometimes exceptional. But seriously, that infernal racket soured my palate before the first bite had gone down.
Central Saint Martins graduate Karen Hsu started making paper flowers when, as a shop assistant at The Mercantile fashion boutique in Spitalfields, London, she was challenged to create a Valentine’s window display out of leftover tissue paper.
I wasn’t sure how much I liked the idea of paper flowers until I received her spring bouquet: ten flowers, including a dusty pink rose in heavyweight crepe paper with ridged petals that curl at the edges, just as real roses do.
Small posies start from £27, bouquets from £95; delivery in three-five days. The breathtakingly realistic paper flowers are made from the bark of the fast-growing mulberry weed tree. Petals are cut then dyed to mimic the real flower; my red rose (£13.50) has an extraordinarily rich colour.
‘For me, nothing looks as chic on a mantel as a single-stem paper flower in a vase,’ says Susan. They’re something a bit different this Valentine’s Day, and they also tick the artisan box. Paper flowers obviously don’t wilt and die, and are more sustainable — especially in winter, when most of our real blooms are flown thousands of miles from Kenya.
I bypass the seafood ceviche with white truffle oil – get behind me, Satan – and coconut jus, as well as the mysteriously monikered ‘shaking beef’ and dive into a crab pomelo salad that is perfectly presentable but lacks the citrus zing and crustacean grin that would make it shine.
There’s nothing he doesn’t know about all things finned, scaled and shelled, and all the fish is sustainably sourced. A good fishmonger is an increasingly rare thing, but Robin Moxon is one of the best in the country. Even if you live outside of London, Moxon’s is well worth a visit. There are shops in Clapham, East Dulwich and South Kensington.
Take a look at their Valentine’s bouquet, above, with red paper roses (£28, order billie eilish shot by masked man February 8). Each flower takes 30-45 minutes to make; the most popular bouquet is the peony (three stems for £28) in mauve and pink. All come mixed with real dried foliage such as verbena and eucalyptus and are tied in brown paper.
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