Three In A Bed

This programme is like Trip Advisor gone mental. B&B owners come and stay in each other's establishments, aiming to find fault with them but be voted the best themselves. I am not sure if people win by being genuinely good hosts or just by being mean to the other competitors.

Although it does do a lot to highlight what is wrong with so many places to stay in rip-off Britain. Mattresses that are manky, toilets that aren't clean, bathrooms that are awkward, rooms that are too hot or too cold, breakfasts that don't do what they say on the tin.

This week our competitors were Norfolk House near Newmarket, the Cromwell Arms in Romsey, and Full Circle Yurts at Rydal Hall in the Lake District. Three completely different establishments, so inevitably three very different sets of owners.

Norfolk House was a beautiful minor mansion set in a large garden that had its own pool, not that anyone braved it at whatever time of year this was. The retired owners were rightly proud of their lovely rooms and kitchen diner, and really tried to go the extra mile. However, they didn't do bacon and eggs, and their piece de resistance Bircher muesli was not seen as a suitable alternative to one set of guests. They also hadn't designed very practical bathroom solutions - one en suite was so narrow you had to sit sideways on the toilet, and another en suite was not - well, en suite, but across the corridor. And a stray pubic hair had been left on that toilet by a rogue carpet fitter, which unfortunately instantly killed Norfolk House's scores. Owner Lynne claimed she would normally eat her Bircher muesli off that toilet, and I believe her. One set of guests found that staying in a B&B was rather confining and I could see her point - you are essentially living in someone's house, which naturally requires a stiffer behaviour protocol. Particularly if you have young children and the owners don't. (Although looking at Norfolk House's website, it seems that children are not allowed, so I am a little less upset with the carpet fitter now.)

The Cromwell Arms was a pub with rooms, so more like a hotel. All swish and newly done, but goodness me, our beady-eyed guests spotted a smeary shower screen and a dusty door. And the bedrooms were too hot and in need of air conditioning. Breakfast was in the pub, but at least bacon and eggs were very much available.

Full Circle Yurts was not a B&B as in Bed and Breakfast (you had to provide your own bacon and eggs), but B&B as in Bed and owner Ben. I couldn't work out if Ben was a bit weird or simply taking the piss. He liked climbing trees, being late for dinner because he was shaving his head, and not wearing shoes. And he didn't let you wear your shoes inside his yurts because he claimed they made them dirty. But this didn't stop him marching over the cream carpets in the other B&Bs with his mucky feet. (Obviously you couldn't ask him to remove his feet without involving a lot of blood.) Still, all the gravel he had to walk over from his car to the B&B doors can't have been fun.

The yurts had the most stunning setting imaginable, and although well furnished with proper beds and a wood-burner, were still camping at heart. Cooking was done on a gas stove and the toilets were in a block down the hill. A bucket was provided for emergencies. A stay there was the most expensive of all - £120 a night, with a three-night minimum stay - whilst providing the least facilities. I suppose it's all about the unique experience of sleeping out on the fells, and that marvellous Cumbrian air.

The winner, by tactical voting and an unnecessary overpayment by Ben, was the Cromwell Arms. Which was probably the place with the least personality, and the one I would least like to stay in, out of the three.

I have been to Newmarket only once, and that was to take part in a Girl Guides national Kim's Game competition when I was about 13, and not to see any horse racing. Random objects were paraded through the ring for us to remember. Kind of like the Generation Game, only without the conveyor belt or Larry Grayson. But I did make my own bowl of Bircher Muesli last week, courtesy of a Fay Ripley recipe, and it is pretty delicious. We used to make something similar (but probably more authentic) when I worked on a farm in Switzerland, with oats, yoghurt and frozen fruit, only there we ate it for tea and not breakfast.

I have never been to Romsey, but I did watch a lot of the Ruth Rendell Inspector Wexford Mysteries on ITV, where Romsey played the role of Kingsmarkham. I am not sure how much there is to see there anyway - the owners of the Cromwell Arms take their guests laser clay pigeon shooting for their local activity. I could think of better ways to pass an afternoon.

Rydal Water. Photo by H Preston

But I have spent a lot of time in Rydal, with its close proximity to Grasmere. The daffodils at Rydal Hall at this time of year are incredible. The guests on Three In A Bed attempt to compose poetry in the grounds with Ben, but I think a previous occupant of Rydal Hall has already said all there is to say on the subject of daffodils. The Badger Bar, where the guests go for dinner (sod that yurt camping stove!) is a fine pub and a favourite locale of ours - a walk along Loughrigg Terrace from Grasmere, past the mighty cave, down into the hamlet for lunch and beer, then back to Grasmere along the track to White Moss known as the Coffin Route.

Mighty Rydal Cave with local eccentric my dad.
Photo by S Dodgson

Undercover Boss - Carluccio's

I always enjoy Undercover Boss. Its premise is that the managing director of a company goes in disguise on to the shop floor to see the public side of their business which they normally, high up in their ivory tower, never get to see. They are invariably shocked and disappointed and realise just quite how out of the loop they are. I think most of us have some experience of a boss who has no idea what is happening at ground-floor level, which is why the programme is so appealing.

York (always behind on the chain restaurant scene) recently acquired its first Carluccio's as part of the rapid expansion of the business that formed the background to this episode. We haven't actually been, but we have been twice to one of the branches featured on the programme, in the Trinity Centre in Leeds. Our first visit, a midweek lunch during the school holidays, was fairly positive, but the second last weekend was very much less so. The place was too busy to cope, and you could see that the kitchen staff were getting slammed. They had a full row of paper chits hanging above the pass. We had to wait ages for our food, and when it came, my ravioli were raw in the middle. I sent my dish back, only to be served a second that was equally bad, by which point I was so hungry I just ate it. It probably only needed an extra minute in the pan, but it shouldn't have to be my place to point this out. We should have gone to the other Carluccio's on Greek Street, which according to the programme, is absolutely dead on a weekend. Not very good for their business, but maybe better for my tummy.

Properly cooked spinach and ricotta filled pasta, made by me

I have eaten at a few of the original London branches of Carluccio's. Generally, they were excellent, but we are talking about the days when the great Antonio Carluccio still had some sort of hand in the business. He sold up a few years ago. Things have definitely gone downhill since then, despite the illusions about the food that its new managing director Simon Kossoff is under. During our long wait in Leeds, I looked around at what the other customers were eating, barely recognising dishes that I knew I had eaten in the past. A plate of penne with courgette, chilli and deep-fried spinach balls, a truly lovely thing served to me in Kingston-upon-Thames more years ago than I care to remember, looked virtually inedible. The chicken milanese, a staple on their set menu, was burned to a crisp.

And this highlights the trouble with the Undercover Boss programme - do the changes that the boss says he is going to implement really come about? I am not sure when the series was filmed, but by now the promised improvements should be in evidence. Simon Kossoff seems like a decent guy, though I have to say I preferred his goth alter-ego kitchen hand Dan, with his fake tattoo sleeve, who was always tasked with taking the bins out via the most complicated route imaginable. Kossoff is genuinely touched by the dedicated staff that he meets, and at the end offers these few people some nice gifts (books, holidays, cooking lessons with Antonio) for their efforts, but what about the rest of his several hundred restaurant employees, all working long hours on minimum wage for no reward or recognition? Although one of the waitresses in Leeds offered some much longed-for chef training after years of servitude, instantly buggers off to work for someone else. Which a cynic may argue is a good reason for keeping people in their place.

But how can restaurants maintain their high standards across a chain that is so thinly spread? How can there be proper quality control by the powers that be? It's not just Carluccio's - you see this happen time and time again with expanded brands. Gourmet Burger Kitchen, for example, was a great little eatery on Northcote Road in Clapham, but now it has opened branches right across the country. And the last time I ate at the one in York, the fries (cooked in stale oil) were not far short of revolting. Giraffe, where I used to go in Muswell Hill from time to time and which has finally now also come to York, seems to have lost its world-food ethos to American style dining. It's a shame.

I would always much rather support a small local eatery than a global conglomerate, but when you have kids, you do end up relying on chains. This is because you know there will be spaghetti bolognese on the menu, and that they will bring crayons. Thank goodness therefore, for Bishy Road's fabulous family-run Sicilian cafe Trinacria, which may not provide crayons, but is otherwise as child friendly as they come, with its vast array of gelato flavours and biscotti and welcoming staff (and I am not just saying that because one is our next-door neighbour and he has been known to "forget" to charge me for my daughter's ice cream). It has columns of IKEA Antilops and easy-wipe tables. And the food is great. And much cheaper than Carluccio's.

Trinacria also lets me take silly photos