May 2008 Archives

I have recently had occasion to visit a couple Michelin star restaurants. Together with a previous dinner, I have been to a total of three restaurants rated one Michelin star (none higher rated). As there is a bit of buzz at the moment around chefs and restaurants, here are some brief reviews.

River Café - I used to share a flat around the corner from this place. There were always expensive cars parked out the front, some with chauffeurs reading a paper in the front seat. I wanted to see what it was like before leaving London. I had a crab pasta dish. It was very nice, but I was slightly unimpressed considering the cost. Nice food, nice wine, it just didn't grab me. Although I'd be happy to give it another try sometime.

Hakkasan - A subterranean Chinese restaurant in the west end. The décor was very stylish. The tables were spotlighted but the paths were in darkness - a cool affect. The food was very good but my foremost memory of this place is the service. I found it excessive. The staff were constantly checking on us. I joked that if I dropped my napkin one of the waiters would catch it before it hit the floor. Looking around there seemed to be more staff than diners. Neither I or my partner could relax. I enjoyed the food, but probably would not go again.

The Sportsman - This is a gastro-pub on the coast at Seasalter near Whitstable. It looks like a standard pub from the outside. Inside it is light (on an overcast day) and spacious. The staff were friendly, although they did warn me the stout had a strong taste, maybe they thought I was a tourist. I had a crab starter with a lamb main and it was cooked perfectly. In short, unpretentious atmosphere and excellent food. Most surprising of all, the cost was about the same as an average London restaurant. Definitely recommended.

The last month has been quite a busy one; I went on holiday and work is keeping me busy. However, I need to keep things going and not let large time gaps discourage me, so here is an update.

• Alpha testing going slowly. There are a number of regression bugs from my occasionally drastic functionality changes and these tend to stop things for a day or so (I find heroku is too slow to edit online, so I have to fix it at home and upload). At this point the Test Driven Development people are probably having a laugh at me and rightly so. In my defence I am still deciding how various features should work so there is a great deal of change occurring.
• My design skills are as bad as I thought according to the alpha tester - this will definitely become a problem later.
• I have taken up golf and poker in the last few weeks and I'm spending time learning. It's a great deal of fun, as I seem to have picked up the basics of both fairly quickly. I aim to write more on these in future.
• I must find more time to work on my project! I'm also setting a goal of at least one blog post per week.

I've also learnt a bit about web advertising and SEO through this blog. Up until the Ultrasphinx post very few people visited this blog. Since that post I get around 5 people a day, with a couple of spikes to 10 in one day. Most of these people come from google searches (check it out), only read the ultrasphinx page, and tend not to stay long. However, a surprising number of them visit again. I have to admit to a little fear and trepidation when I first saw the explosion (albeit highly targeted) in readership. I wasn't sure what to write. Should I write more technical articles, as that is what drives people to this blog, or just continue as before. The lack of technical things to write about made the decision for me, although I do double-check my spelling now.

In any case the extra readership hasn't made any difference to my ad clicks or google page rank. Google still classifies cordinc.com as low popularity. No one has clicked an ad since the first week of the blog, earning me a grand total of US14cents. I had originally thought that my project could be funded by ads, but I'm not so sure now. I don't think there is as much money in it as before so I may need to rethink the business model. Perhaps it's best just to get the system finished first.