Fantastic French chef and then on to Fawlty Towers in Andorra

Deciding to drive somewhere for the New Year's celebrations, the blonde and I thought we would try something different - a short winter sports holiday in Andorra. With most of Europe covered in snow, the Maserati was left in the garage and the Range Rover Sport complete with winter tyres and a brand new set of snow chains was bought into service.

Stopped on the way in Baden Baden at the charming Belle Epoque boutique hotel; its small. shabby genteel and the staff are the best you could find anywhere in Europe. We laughed over breakfast, as an Indian "Mr Grumpy" with his fat wife and fatty kids tried their very best to goad the staff, one after the other with a series of pathetic complaints about their omelette, their porridge and anything else that they could think of. The Germans won hands down and gave a show of polished politeness straight out of the best hotel school. Hats off to them. But I wished I had Mr Grumpy with me a couple of days later.

Next stop was the small but perfectly formed establishment of Frederic Carrion, in the village of Vire not far from Macon. Chef Carrion has now added a few suites to his Relais de Montmartre restaurant. If anyone is deserving of one or two Michelins Stars its this fine chef and his Degustation Menu based on truffles was simple but splendid. He kindly posed for the photo above.

Now for the main event; we finally arrived at our New Year's Eve destination, the Sport Hotel Hermitage & Spa in Soldeu, Andorra.

Although costing a king's ransom and claiming 5 stars, this modern wooden edifice has no Porte Cachere, and no "set-down" area delineated on the main street; so we were forced to park in the street and shlep the 100 metres or so up the hill back to its glass entrance doors to announce ourselves. A porter then had to make the same trek down the hill and back up again with our baggage. Its now 5 pm and having had a long drive from Macon I was looking forward to relaxing in our suite before taking dinner. Sadly it seemed the suite had not been cleaned, and we had to "relax' with a beverage in the bar.

The whole hotel is modern and well appointed, but someone seems to have bought Tesco's entire stock of room freshener and sprayed it throughout the whole place. Our suite flattered to deceive, with no functioning internet, a bath that would not empty except over the bathroom floor and a cubicle for the toilet that had no ventilation.

We chose to try out the so called Fusion restaurant. Fusion is something that works well when you have a chef of my friend Paul Day's talents in Prague ( Paul was ex Nobu ), but when you have the local chaps trying out what's really quite a complex bit of chemistry it not suprisingly fails badly. I have to leave my main course unfinished, despite having missed lunch. The restaurant manager seemed bemused when I showed him a rock hard bit of "yakitori" chicken. He asked me what I would like; to which I really should have asked to go into their open fronted kitchen and give their boys a short cooking lesson; but in the end, after a long day, I settled for taking the 30 bucks or so they wanted for this tough offering, off my bill. Service was slow and the restaurant was full of screaming kids and their badly dressed parents.

The manager Mr Luis Benoit has been in hiding since my arrival; it seems he is always at one of the other two hotels in the town that belong the "Sport Hotels" group. Even my imitation of the Indian Mr Grumpy, carried out in a loud voice in the middle of their busy reception has failed to flush him from cover. But various "Manuals", in the worthy tradition of Basil Fawlty's, have been much in evidence. Its a shame no one can be bothered to train them or their manager how to run a Five Star establishment.

I cannot describe the gastlyness of the New Year's Eve dinner; good ingredients spoiled by poor cooking, unimaginative presentation and generally lacking any kind of flair at all. Main parts were an overcooked piece of fish, followed by a very tough fillet steak. We left the dining room before the deserts arrived, not being able to take another terrible offering seriously. Upstairs, there was a black American singer who managed to croak her way through a variety of badly chosen covers; the highlight of the evening was when the big TV screen ( I guess showing celebrations of the New Year in Madrid ) went black just as the countdown to midnight began. A fitting finale for a another year of Fawlty Towers, Andorran style.

A room with a view

The blond and I had been invited to the grand launch of the new Ferrari 599 GTO, due to be unveiled for the first time at the Military Academy in Modena. Ferrari had kindly offered to put us up at their expense in Bologna to join a world wide gathering of rich and enthusiastic Ferrari addicts who had already reserved one of these new supercars. Only problem being I got the date wrong and arrived in Italy, completely over excited, a day too early. This could have been an anti-climax, after tearing through the autobahns of Germany and then the Brenner Pass in my runabout to get there. However, this mistake created an opportunity of its own - to stay for a night at the famous and ludicrously expensive Hotel Villa San Michele, on the outskirts of Florence.

It is situated on a hill in Feisole, looking down towards Florence and the has enjoyed a reputation only matched by Le Splendido, and a handful of other Italian hotels. Perhaps, such a august establishment is not used to its punters ringing at the last minute for a room, but I was not able to elicit much of a choice of rooms below one thousand euros per night. Upon arriving, it came down to a cramped double bedroom with a view to Florence and a better appointed room, with a view to San Michele's superb gardens. The blond, without hesitation chose the garden room. I can best describe the decor as "shabby genteel", that air of once being fashionable and "polished" daily by an infinite army of servants to keep up appearances. The bath was fascinating, in that the only way to reach the on-off tap was to lever oneself out of the prone position, crawl to the other end of the bath, make the adjustment and fall back again.

We took cocktails in the bar before dinner; pleasant enough, but had the weather been warmer, sitting on the terrace over-looking Florence would have made the drink truly memorable. What I do remember is that the bar steward was one of the best I have ever come across. The right mixture between efficient, friendly and smart - definitely management material and a delight to pass some light banter with.

Moving to the fairly formal dining room, which seemed to have its normal mix ( for Florence ) of Asians, Americans and possibly the odd Russian, the service was still at the highest level. Clearly they have had some old hands who have been around for donkeys' years and taught some of the young bloods how to serve. The food itself does not match the setting or the service; don't get me wrong its hard to fault it, but it lacks inspiration and any flair in its presentation. Put Gordon Ramsey in there for a week to shake them up and/or recruit some brilliant young chef from a less august establishment and it would be transformed.

The next morning we had what was described as an "American Style buffet breakfast". I think that's a completely inappropriate way to describe the very Italian fare that was laid out on a several substantial tables. It included various cured Italian hams and salamis, cheeses, fruit, pastries etc. All of the very highest quality, fresh and well presented. A steward was on hand to keep pouring coffee and rustle up some boiled eggs for the blond. In short, nothing American about it and could better be described as a "brunch" rather than a breakfast.

Check-out was quick and painless, apart from the staggering price. One of the senior concierge team, Massimo, was most helpful and can be seen above, standing next to me and the runabout.

Le Grill is deserted

The other night I decided to make a first visit to Le Grill at Prague's Kempinski Hotel having been seduced by a positive review by Claire Compton, a Staff Writer for that august publication, The Prague Post, entitled "Fresh Tastes for Spring", and published in the March 10 - 16th edition. According to Ms Compton Chef Marek Fichtner had introduced a new seasonal menu.

Booked a table for the blonde and i to celebrate her name day and imagined that the restaurant would be bustling with romantic couples either celebrating a similar name day, or taking a crack at the highly rated seasonal menu. Sadly, the restaurant was completely empty and there was no sign of the seasonal menu - perhaps it is just for lunch ? In any event, we both decided to take a main course from the A La Carte offerings ; I asked for the Czech farm chicken with normal mashed potato instead of the sweet potato puree on the menu. The waitress, clearly bored to tears decided she would exercise her culinary knowledge by asking the Chef if that was possible. Rather unkindly, I said to her that if he was having trouble with the plain mash, I would be happy to go to the kitchen and help him out. She appeared ten minutes later to say that mash potato was in Chef Fichtner repetoire, but it would delay the serving by twenty minutes or so. I wonder how he does the sweet potato puree - in a microwave, or, if he keeping a huge pot of it going under some warming lamp. The mind boggles.

True to her promise, the waitress produced the chicken and mash twenty minutes later and the blonde's piece of tired looking white fish. She poked it around the plate for the time it took me to chew threw my tough piece of bird and then left most of it on the plate. Neither dish justified their very high prices or the long wait, given that we were the only two punters in the whole place.

My wine was good - a half bottle of a very nice French Bordeaux, good vintage but annoyingly the waitress had removed it from the table to a resting place out of my reach, so I had to rely on her to re-charge my glass. The blonde consoled herself with pink Champagne which she claimed, took away the taste of the flaky fish.

I don't know who owns the Kempinski, but in terms of the operators agreement all the losses from this restaurant are probably passed on to the owner in terms of a standard hotel operating agreement. My advice to the owner, get down there and shake the whole restaurant team up or you will be waiting years before it breaks even. Its no wonder that the waitress told me that most of the hotel guests dine elsewhere; I don't blame them.

On Safari

In the heart of the Kruger Park, on the banks of the Sabie River, lies a boutique Safari Camp called Tinga. Its gracious owner Anthony Marx looks the real McKoy dressed in his bush suit next to red faced Night Rider. The camp is laid out as a number of luxurious but tasteful huts reached by a wooden walkway from central facilities; they are constructed from local materials and blend in well to the bush surrounding them with each having a viewing deck looking own towards the Sabie River.

Our first encounter with nature was nearly the Blonde's last. Having spotted a young bull elephant making his way up from the Sabie, towards our hut, she decided to jump over the low electric fence and venture out into the bush to get a closer shot of it ( with her camera of course ). Being cowardly by nature, I quickly dismissed the idea of rescuing her myself in favour of calling for one of the game rangers. One eventually appeared and was able to persuade the blonde to clamber back over the right side of the wire.

Later the same ranger took us on a day's tracking where we came close up to a group of hippos bathing and the Sabie River, a white rhino relaxing in the bush and a large cheetah eating its kill in a tree. Only one of the big five that failed to appear on cue, were the lions, but nevertheless an impressive round up.

However the other guests were a strange bunch; in particular, the blonde and I were lumbered with a friendly but very elderly couple from Johannesburg and a couple of Jehovah's Witnesses from Houston, Texas. The latter were very heavy going and its a mistake of the camp to make people on the same game drives also have to dine together in the evening. Enough is enough and i would have appreciated to get the opportunity to chose my company.



The food too was on the whole very disappointing; rather than trot out simple South African cooking the chef clearly wanted to show that he ( or she ) had been to a chi-chi cooking school. For instance, a delicious rack of Karoo one dinner was ruined by what was called a "mint and balsamic reduction", that in its effort to be sophisticated, merely rendered the meat cloying and tasting like it had been marinated in cough medicine.

Tinga has great potential and is real luxury in a stunning bush and river setting. however, lack of hands-on management seems to pervade the whole place and Anthony Marx was only evident one evening for cocktails. He told me that he is in the process of changing the management company; good luck with that Anthony and i may return to see if its made the difference between enjoyable and sublime !

Virgin Soldiers

Night Rider and the Blonde decided to head towards warmer climes for the New Year - namely to RSA, the Republic of South Africa. With some trepidation heading to Heathrow to catch the Virgin 6pm flight to Jo'burg on December 17th; heavy snow was forcaste for that evening. Judging by all the traffic on the M4 motorway out of London, it looked like everyone was leaving the City to a few visiting Americans and the hordes of asylum seekers to their own delights during the so-called "festive period" ( political correctness prevents NR as referring to this time of year as "Christmas" )

Sure enough, not long after getting in the Upper Class cabin, the promised snow started falling in generous quantities. However, a saviour was at hand. Sir Richard Branson himself, complete with at least three generations of his Upper Class family climbed aboard and enschonced themselves a few seats away. Sir R seemed to be in a great mood and no doubt, it was his influence that finally got us airborne by 7.30 pm. He is clearly one of the world's cleverest businessmen and so inspirational, that his Virgin staff work for a fraction of their bad tempered British Airways colleagues and always, have a smile and kind word for you.

Sir R had his ancient parents with him; but Dad who must be at least 90 in the shade, still looks like a fit old root and i can only wonder at the admiration he must have for his clever son. In deference to the ancients, Sir R announced shortly after take off that the oldest 15 or so punters travelling cattle class as the back of the plane, would be invited to join us in the Upper Class section. There then followed a procession of what must have at first sight, appeared to be the central committee of the Conservative Party, complete with shawls and sticks, stumbling into our midst and momentarily disturbing the flow of bubbly to the Blonde's glass.

Some sort of mediocre dinner followed and while the Blonde cackled through a showing of Bruno, I managed to get some zeds before the lights were turned up again before our landing at Jo'burg. There we were scheduled to catch a South African Airways "Air Link" flight to the Kruger Park. No one had told me that Airlink had suffered three serious accidents in the last three months and was in danger of having all its flights suspended until its safety record was put right. However, after seeing the crew and a few local maintenance staff fiddling with our first alloted plane, while we sat in a steaming hot bus next to it on the runway, I can understand why.

We finally made it onto one of their planes some 7 hours later; I could not help thinking that i could have driven to the Kruger in half the time and made a note to be not so lazy next time. I wonder what Sir R would have thought of "Air Link" - probably have shed a few crocodile tears.