De La Creme Patisserie, Melville

Wednesday, June 23, 2004

Service: * * * 1/2
Food: * * * * *
Ambience: * * * 1/2
Babe Count: * * *

I'm fractionally earlier than Jan for our 4pm meeting in De La Creme. Nick, the baker, makes the most astounding chocolate cake I've encountered. If you like creamy chocolate excess, the ganaz is an essential life experience. Get yourself to Melville and try it.

Someone presses his hand against the window. It's Jan. He's on his cellphone outside the restaurant, letting me know he's arrived.

I met him through a friend of Jacqui's some time ago. He's a business broker, maverick, crazy man. A bit like me, actually. He'll be heading to China near the end of the year for three months, half on holiday, and half on business.

We're meeting cos one of the things I do is troubleshoot. That's what I did mainly on the Ethiopian project. When I was called in, the Chemistry team was in disarray, and my gig was to get rid of the bad elements, so to speak, and get a good team going. My talents in producing are in structuring. I'm not particularly keen on actual hands on implementation.

So Jan and I are chatting about the possibility of doing some business together. No details, I'm afraid. But I'm excited. He's excited. And we're both members of each others' fan clubs. So hey. Lets see what happens.