table talk

Make sure someone knows the Heimlich manoeuvre

For all those who harbour an unnatural fear of Friday the 13th, Lola's restaurant in north London has dreamt up a good incentive to entice you out of the house - a 13-course dégustation menu available only tomorrow.

It's to be hoped that after gorging on such a veritable feast, which includes duck terrine, roast saddle of Snowdonia lamb, a Spanish charcuterie plate, and fig tart, the customers don't fall into such a trance of wellbeing that they risk injury on the way home.

Fat's in the fire as survey points the finger at Mancs

Leading North-west chef Paul Heathcote has hit back at a magazine that claims Manchester is the fattest city in Britain.

The Lancashire city came top of the fat list compiled by Men's Fitness. Apparently, researchers investigated the lifestyles of people in 22 cities by looking at factors such as drinking habits, fat and calorie consumption and the number of fast-food outlets.

But Heathcote is having none of it. "It's no surprise this survey comes from a magazine published in the South," he fumed. "It sounds to me like it was researched by a journalist on an all-expenses trip to Manchester who woke up in the morning and found she was bigger than the night before."

Hotel helps ladies take the leap-year plunge

The Four Seasons Hotel London is running a promotion to help women propose to their partners.

According to tradition, women can ask for their suitor's hand in marriage on 29 February. The Four Seasons is offering a package that includes bed and breakfast, a guide to unusual London locations for proposing, a bouquet of roses and a meal tailored to celebrate the place where you first met. What, we wonder, would executive chef Bernhard Mayer come up with for a couple who met at a nightclub in Slough?

Looks like pizza's turning half-Japanese

Jaded global gourmets who think they've digested it all need to head for Tokyo and taste what the Japanese are doing to pizza.

At the Mugi Ishigama Maki Un pizzeria, toppings range from cod roe marinated in salt and cayenne pepper on mustard greens, to teriyaki chicken, or bacon and eggs sunny-side-up.

For the sweet-toothed, there's Grand Marnier with banana and chocolate pizza.

Known as wafu pizza, the genre straddles the divide between Japanese and Western cuisine. The Mohri Salvatore restaurant is serving "Japolitan" fare. Half-Japanese, half-Italian chef Salvatore Cuomo takes wafu perhaps to its logical conclusion by serving pizza-wrapped sushi - bite-sized rolls of dough wrapped around raw tuna, lotus root, leek teriyaki or prosciutto.

Be a miracle if this idea catches on for long

Jesus Christ is alive and well and living in Cricklewood. News of Biblical goings-on at a north London hotel reached us this week. The King Sitric restaurant at the Crown Moran hotel is offering to swap every bottle of mineral water ordered with dinner for a bottle of wine throughout February. What next? Will manna from heaven be the must-have dish on future menus? And are communal wafer-and-wine lunch specials likely to replace the Sunday roast?

Staff at the King Sitric wouldn't confirm whether future promotions included feeding five thousand diners with five loaves and two fishes.