Table talk
Mystery of the missing molluscs
Hong Kong diners must wait three months to eat abalone at a top restaurant after £86,000 worth of the seafood was stolen. The abalone was taken from the Forum restaurant in Causeway Bay, where seafood dishes can cost up to £2,500. Abalone, bird's nest and shark's fin worth up to £172,000 were stolen from a storeroom during the night. Manager Yeung Koon-yat said: "I think it will take me at least three months to find such top-grade abalone in Japan."
Charity to benefit from dirty money
Firefighter Neil Massam had the strangest job of his career when he was dropped down a hotel's 58ft-deep well to "rescue" hundreds of coins dropped in by customers over the past 13 years. A spokesman at the King's Head hotel in Ross-on-Wye, Herefordshire, said: "We've got all the money sitting here, but most of it is so dirty and gunged up that we can't even tell if it's copper or silver. The hotel dates back to the 14th century and people have been dropping money into the well for hundreds of years. It was last emptied 13 years ago by someone brave enough to go down there. But none of the staff was willing to go down so the fire brigade kindly stepped in to help." Once cleaned, the money will be given to charity.
Something fishy about the sausages
An unusual sausage is making its debut at the opening of Fish Week at Milford Marina in Pembrokeshire this Saturday (29 June). "We have been working on a fish sausage for some time," said butcher and fishmonger Beverly Hughes, who, with her husband Peter, created the curious skinless banger made from salmon and tarragon. Many restaurants, fisheries and fish retailers are expected to take part in Fish Week, now in its third year.
She really should get out more
A small Scottish-based company has beaten a series of major legal barriers to successfully register the word "love" as a drinks trademark. Entrepreneur Dee Buchanan badgered patent offices in Edinburgh, London and Brussels for more than two years before they finally caved in. Celebrating her success, she gushed: "An energy drink does more than just quench your thirst. It's an emotion and a sensation rolled into one, and there is no greater energy, sensation or emotion than love. Developing Love has been an unbelievably exciting experience." The guarana-based drink is aimed at pub- and club-goers.
Don't bank on any trends forecasting there
Belgian-born Karl Steppe, chairman of the Blue Elephant group of Thai restaurants, can tell you how rapidly London has changed. In the early 1980s, while setting up his restaurant in London's Fulham Broadway, he was refused a £20,000 overdraft by the bank next door. The manager told him a restaurant in such a rough area would never take off. Today, the restaurant is bursting with Fulham's bright young things every night, and has the highest turnover of the nine-strong group. Twenty grand wouldn't buy you a broom cupboard, and there's not a Chelsea soccer hooligan in sight. It almost makes you nostalgic for the bad old days.
