Rick Stein

[alan c.]

Rushed home from the pub to see the new Rick Stein series, From Venice to Istanbul. I love both Venice and Symi but what was really bizarre was that RS made his Venetian recipes on Symi - using, among other things, Symi shrimps and frozen crab!! And with almost nothing about Symi, or Greek food, apart from the Blue Star in the background as he cooked. WTF was that about?? Had the BBC an filmed an episode on Symi that hat they needed to chop and so included it in the 'Venice' programme? It came over to me as an insult to Symi's gorgeous seafood. There is certainly scope for a fantastic episode on food on Symi - sadly this wasn't it. Grrrrrr!!!!

[Andy W]

I got the impression that throughout the series, where Rick himself is doing the cooking, that was filmed on Symi (and I was on the island when the filming was done, they were there for quite a time). As the series moves round from Venice towards Istanbul, there will be part of each episode shot on location in each country in turn, including cooking by local chefs in restaurant kitchens, spliced in with Rick producing a local dish in the kitchen of Sofia's House in Harani.
No doubt we'll see a lot more Symi when it is Greece's turn to showcase its food. Next episode features the cuisine of Ravenna and of Croatia:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0664clz

[Allan]

I was puzzled when I saw the route of his travels as published in the Radio Times last week. It covers a lot of miles but comes nowhere near Symi, despite the article being illustrated by a picture of the island.

Having watched last night's episode my guess is that something went wrong with his usual 'cook a local dish with the locals at every place he visits' routine so they re-recorded all of his cooking in one place. Just why they decided on Symi to do that is anyone's guess. It is nice to see odd shots of Symi mixed in among the other places and we may get more of those in future programmes but I doubt it's going to feature in the way that Venice did and that's a real shame.

I agree with you Alan, he was disparaging towards Symi's seafood with the small fish only being good enough for stock. His disgust at having to use frozen crab was very obvious!

[Olga]

I couldn't decide where he was doing his cooking, thanks for telling us. A friend of mine watched the show, and then said "I didn't know Symi was so beautiful" !!!!
She obviously hasn't been listening all these years whilst I have been enthusing about the place.

[Joe Le Taxi]

Today,we are looking through The Square Window. I like Rick Stein but I was getting more and more irritated the longer the programme went on.How bizarre to be cooking the food of Venice in a house in Symi with only a nano second of Yialos through the window of Sophia's House They had better do it justice when it's the Greek episode.

[David]

Personally I was just glad to see Symi on the TV, with a celebrated chef giving it a first class revue. I agree with Olga's friend, though I did know how beautiful it is.

[Oor Willie]

In most of his recent series Rick has done all his cooking at one central location, the canal side house in the French Odyssey, the lake house in the Indian series and quite often back in his own kitchen in Padstow. He still does some cooking with the locals in their own kitchens but I guess it's easier to do all his own set pieces in one location and at least he picked a great location this time

[STEVE]

A friend of mine watched the show, and then said "I didn't know Symi was so beautiful" !!!!
She obviously hasn't been listening all these years whilst I have been enthusing about the place.

We have a friend who said something similar to us on Sunday after watching the programme. He said he hadn't realised how spectacular it all was until he saw the long shots.

Steve

[Samantha F]

I liked the show, and the shots of Symi were lovely to see.

Where did Rick actually stay when there?