“My First Sushi” GUEST POST – Benjamin Vallance (Aged 10)

One of my favourite blogs is “1 dish 4 the road” by Aaron Vallance and when he mentioned on Twitter that his 10 year old son Ben had submitted his fist ever piece of food writing to a food writing competition, I offered to pay Ben his first writers commission ($5) in order to publish…

The Silver Cup, Harpenden, Hertfordshire.

Life has a funny way of coming full circle, so it is perhaps unsurprising that whilst I was back in the UK I spent a couple of months working for the son of the lady who gave me my start in the hospitality business at Harpendens fabled “Billys Bar & restaurant” back in 1998. Landlord…

The Cricketers, Sarratt, Hertfordshire, UK.

As I wasn’t flying back to Yangon until the evening, there was time to squeeze in one last UK lunch, and as is our habit, my parents had found a lovely countryside pub for us to enjoy lunch in before we left for Heathrow.  The Cricketers in Sarratt is made up of three separate buildings…

The Plough, Sleapshyde, Hertfordshire.

Located in the pretty Hertfordshire hamlet of Sleepshyde, between St Albans and Hatfield, The Plough is a pretty little countryside pub, dating back to 1690 (although the current pub has been considerably renovated and modernised since then) After a fire burnt down their kitchen earlier in the year, they took to serving a Braii (South…