Edible London

Notes

2011-12-08T18:47:00.013Z

Children in restaurants are a controversial topic.

In my bit of East London, they are pretty much everywhere -- I even spotted a sleeping baby at an open mic night in the basement of a local cocktail bar. In places with a different demographic they can be less welcome.

I wouldn't take mine to, say, the Fat Duck, Le Gavroche or the local old man's boozer. But in a cafe in the daytime, I reckon it's fair game. A girl has to eat, after all.

As someone who's never been a huge fan of (other people's) children, I am, however, very self conscious about taking the baby places and perhaps have an overactive imagination when it comes to public disapproval.

So it's possible that the hostility I felt in Notes in Covent Garden was entirely my own perception -- maybe the server was just having a bad day -- but I felt it acutely nonetheless.

It looked much like any other modern cafe: coffee in small glasses, a large wooden bar/counter and posh-looking sandwiches for around a fiver each. A later, closer inspection revealed aspirations for higher things with bottles of wine and a (presumably trendy) music shop downstairs.

The guy behind the counter glanced at me and the pushchair with about as much enthusiasm as at the homeless guy who walked in before me. To be fair, the baby was on the grumpy side.

There wasn't much in the way of a detailed food menu, possibly because the offerings change regularly. I would have liked more information, more detailed answers to my questions about the fare on offer on the counter. Like to be told that the sausage rolls weren't just the ordinary kind, but pork and apple. I would have ordered them then. Or to be given the option of having some salad with the sandwich I hastily chose in the end, as other customers were later (admittedly by a different server). As I say, it could have been my imagination, but the guy seemed pretty impressed when I said I was eating in. He did offer to bring my coffee and sandwich to me (I don't know if this is what they normally do), but in the end this just meant I ended up having to queue a second time in order to pay (resisting the urge to sneak out).

When he appeared with the order, I asked if I could also have a mandarinade, which I'd spotted on the board in the meantime, and which had intrigued me. He said yes, but this never appeared, even though there was a lull in customers while I was eating.

The sandwich was nice -- silky, salty goats cheese with velvety aubergines and the sweet tang of (I think) onion marmalade. It was a little over-peppered though, and some cutlery would have been nice to scoop up the filling and cut through the crusty bread. The coffee was fine, but the entire experience left a bit of a sour taste. Back in the fresh air, I continued towards Covent Garden, stumbling on the bustling Real Food Market, which I discovered to be a regular Thursday occurrence. I wish I'd eaten there instead.
Notes could be a good place for music, and you could definitely do worse if you are looking for a quick bite or drink in the area, but I'd give it a miss if you are with a baby.

Notes, 36 Wellington St, Covent Garden, WC2E 7BD; Tel. 02072407899; www.notesmusiccoffee.com

Potato Gratin -- Cheat's Dauphinoise

2011-12-04T20:39:00.000Z

When it comes to cooking at home, I am not much of a traditionalist and I am a big fan of short cuts and time-savers.
A real, pedigree gratin dauphinois is made in the South East of France with impossibly thin slivers of raw spuds, slathered in milk and cream and baked in the oven for an hour or more with delicious results. In the neighbouring Savoie they make it even better by adding cheese.
At home in East London, I do not possess a mandolin -- or much patience. This means that on the few occasions when I have tried raw potato bakes (such as the gratin dauphinois, or its stock-based cousin, potatoes boulangere), they have come out burnt on the top and al-dente in the middle.
My salvation came in the unlikely source of a Russian magazine, which suggested cooking the potatoes in a mixture of cream and cream first (a method I letter heard is also favoured by Nigella).
Serve with some greens (spinach, salad, etc), either on its own or as an accompaniment to beef (roast, steak or even carpaccio) or gammon.

Serves 2-4, depending on appetites and how much other stuff you serve with it
600g potatoes
1/2 pint milk
200g double cream (or creme fraiche)
garlic, nutmeg, pepper, salt
200g cheese (Gruyere or Beaufort for Savoyard authenticity, but cheddar also works)
Slice the potatoes as thinly as your patience and kitchen implements allow. Preheat oven to 120 degrees.
Mix the milk and the cream in a pan, add chopped garlic and potatoes, season with nutmeg and pepper. Bring to the boil. Add potatoes, turn down heat and simmer for about 10 minutes.
Using a slotted spoon, layer out the potatoes into a gratin dish.
Pour over the milk/cream and top with grated cheese. Cook in the oven for about 20 minutes, until the top is golden with melted cheesy goodness.
Bon appétit.

John Charlick

2011-12-01T21:12:00.001Z

Many moons ago, I was a young graduate working near Chancery Lane.
The smoky old-man boozer where we used to go on Friday nights is now an airy gastro pub, and the cafe where I bought my morning croissant and coffee for 99 pence is long gone.
But one local institution is still going strong -- John Charlick.
It's a tiny deli, serving sandwiches and salads to lawyers and other locals for three decades worth of lunchtimes.

I was pleased to see that my favourite mackrel pate is still on the short menu. Spread thickly on rye bread it still tasted absolutely divine.
There are a couple of tables outside, but Gray's Inn Road isn't the prettiest spot. If you have kids, grab your sandwich and head to Coram's Fields, a seven acre playground and park in to which adults are only allowed if accompanied by a minor. Or, for a more serene atmosphere, head to Gray's Inn Field.

John Charlick, 142 Gray's Inn Road, Holborn, WC1X 8AX; Tel.
020 7278 9187 www.charlick.co.uk

Cheese, mushroom and bacon tart

2011-11-29T12:31:00.000Z

Forget sliced bread. The best food invention ever was ready-made pastry.
With its arrival, any random fridge/cupboard ingredients can be turned into PIE with minimum effort. Pies always look impressive (especially if made in my giant pie dish), go down well with guests and can be cooked in the oven -- all winning attributes in my book.
In terms of filling, pretty much anything goes -- this is an approximate breakdown of a pie (or, strictly speaking, a tart) I made this week for a games night, which reminds me of another pie bonus -- it can be eaten with your hands so is a good snack/buffet food.

Serves 4

1 pack shortcrust pastry
1 punnet of mushrooms
2 onions
150g stilton
150g cheddar
4 rashers of bacon
200g Greek yoghurt (you could also use single cream, sour cream or creme fraiche)
2 eggs
salt, pepper, herbs (I used rosemary and sage)

Preheat the oven to 200 degrees. Butter your pie dish and line it with pastry. Top with baking beans and bake for about 10 minutes.
Chop and fry the onions, bacon and mushrooms until cooked. You could also add garlic, celery, spinach -- anything you like really.
Beat together the eggs with the yoghurt and add the seasoning.
Layer the onions, bacon and mushrooms over the pastry (remove the baking beans first!).
Scatter over the grated cheese. Top with the yoghurt and egg mixture.
Return to the oven for another 20 minutes or so until cooked and browned on top.
Serve with salad or some form of cooked greens.

Chilango: plus ça change....

2011-11-26T19:02:00.003Z

In the three years we were away from London much has changed (like the arrival of Boris bikes and hundreds of new cyclists on the roads) and much has stayed the same (like the seemingly interminable escalator closures at Bank). Favourite restaurants have shut, but new gems have sprung up. Some changes though have been, at most, skin-deep.
Chilango was a new name on Angel's main drag, attracting long queues of office workers on weekday lunchtimes whenever I passed it.
Not a fan of queues, I am nonetheless intrigued by their destinations and resolved to check the place out on a quieter day.

Inside, I was struck by deja vu.
Turns out that Chilango is a name-changed, redecorated Mucho Mas, which I reviewed 3 years ago. The same owners, the same Subway-style production line, the same free water and expensive Negro Modello, the same extra charge for guacamole (£1). The menu is broadly along the same lines, offering the choice of burritos, tacos, salad or totopos. I went for the latter as I liked the name :-)
The internet suggests totopos are a slightly different type of cornflour flatbread, but here the dish consisted of tortilla chips topped with black beans, lettuce, cheese, sour cream and chicken (£6.30). The online menu also mentions salsa, but I don't recall any and can't spot it on the photo either. It really wasn't great, coming across as a bland and soggy mess, despite the kick of the chilli. May be I should have gone for the burrito, but for that kind of money, I'd say it was a disappointing rip off.
Seems sometimes queues are wrong.

Chilango, 27 Upper Street, Islington, N1 0PN; Tel. 020 7704 2123 www.chilango.co.uk

Squash Soup

2011-11-23T19:29:00.000Z

My bookshelf is lined with a dozen or more cookbooks, resplendent with artful photos and names of acclaimed chefs. I love to browse through them, but it is a couple of tattered, old volumes that I come to most often when I am actually cooking.
One of them is Simply Different by Sarah Woodward. Given to me by my mother-in-law, it is 17 years old, out of print and contains not a single picture. And yet, I turn to it time and time again for inspiration and very modern-tasting dishes.
I like how the book is arranged by ingredient, offering inspiration when you find, say, a bunch of sorry-looking carrots at the back of your fridge, a squash in your veggie box or a cheerful sole at your fishmonger's.
This is my version of the pumpkin soup recipe -- perfect for a dreary day.

Serves 4 as a lunch or a hearty starter

900g squash (or pumpkin)
1 large onion
3 sticks celery
3 cloves of garlic
1 litre of chicken stock
200g Greek yoghurt
salt, black pepper

Chop the onion, the celery and the garlic. Fry on a moderate heat for about 10 minutes, with a little oil.
Peel the squash, remove any seeds. Cut into cubes and add to the pan. Stir well before adding the stock. Bring to the boil, then simmer for about 30 minutes until the squash is tender.
Blitz with a blender. Stir through the yoghurt and season with plenty of black pepper. Add salt if necessary (but you may not need to, depending on how salty your stock is).
Serve with bread.

(The original omits the yoghurt, adds olive oil and parmesan and serves the soup with slices of toasted garlic ciabatta to line the bowls.)

Breakfast at Carluccio's

2011-11-21T19:10:00.001Z

To me, they are a completely alien species.
They don't appear to have the live alarm clocks in the shape of kids, nor do they seem to have come from the early morning church service. And yet there they are, at 10am on a Sunday, queueing -- yes queueing -- for breakfast. I honestly don't know if they've always been there or if it's a new trend. Pre-baby, I was rarely if ever out at that time on a Sunday morning.
In Islington, they have pretty good taste, snaking along Camden Passage outside the Breakfast Club, or further up Upper Street, crowding into Ottolenghi. Both serve good food but I would question whether either is worth queueing for (especially if you consider that people rarely rush their Sunday breakfasts, so you could be waiting for quite a while).
I do hunger badly and possibly do queueing even worse. So we went to Carluccio's, which, mercifully, had plenty of free tables.

From the fairly compact breakfast menu I chose the eggs benedict (£7.65). The yolk in the poached eggs was golden and beautifully runny, the ham was thick and flavoursome and the hollandaise was quite passable. I am not sure why they put olive oil on the bread but it didn't really harm the dish.

The husband went for scrambled eggs and mushrooms on toast (£6.75). Carluccio's does mushrooms especially well (I love their mushroom pasta) and this time they also didn't disappoint.
The coffee was a little bitter for my taste, but it was nothing that a bit of sugar couldn't fix.
The service was quick, the baby was asleep and there were plenty of Sunday papers to linger over -- bliss that you don't have to queue for.

Carluccio's, 305-307 Upper Street, Islington, N1 2TU; Tel. 020 7359 8167; carluccios.com

Macaroni Cheese

2011-11-19T20:43:00.000Z

For years, I thought pasta was pasta, period.
The choice on the supermarket shelf was a mixture of the aesthetic - are bows cuter than spirals - and the practical - would you rather slurp spaghetti or shovel in neat spoonfuls of macaroni?
Of course, things are rarely as simple as they first appear. Italian tradition dictates that long, thin pasta goes with thin, oily sauces, while chunkier and ridgier varieties go with a thicker accompaniment that clings better to their shape. That would explain why carbonara is usually served with spaghetti or tagliatelle, but the rule then clearly fails for bolognaise.
One day, I should do a pasta tasting to see how much difference the shape actually makes. But that doesn't sound nearly as much fun as, say, a wine tasting, and for now I still mostly just have one type of pasta in the cupboard at a time. So, tonight, when the cold weather and the dark evening had me yearning for comfort food, we had fusilli cheese. And very good it was too.

Serves 2-3 hungry people

400g pasta
4 slices bacon
1 pint milk
50g butter
50g flour
4 garlic cloves
200g cheddar
mustard, pepper, nutmeg, salt to taste

Cook pasta per instructions. Fry the chopped bacon.
Slice the garlic and put in a small pan with the milk. Warm until just short of boiling. (Or use a microwave.) Warm milk is my newly discovered secret to a perfect white sauce.
Melt the butter in a small pan, add the flour and cook for a couple of minutes. Slowly - very slowly - add in the milk, constantly stirring to make the smooth white sauce.
Flavour with mustard, black pepper, nutmeg (and anything else you fancy) to taste. Grate in about half the cheese.
Put the pasta, bacon and sauce in an oven-proof dish. Top with the rest of the grated cheese and put under a hot grill until bubbling.
Serve with a green salad to keep up the pretence of trying to eat healthily.

For the ultimate guide to macaroni cheese variations, check out Felicity Cloake's Guardian column. But for me it's very much an easy, lazy, comforting kind of dish that does not involve the faff of turning on the food processor for breadcrumbs or splashing out on parmesan. Besides, anything that has been under the grill with cheese on top always looks awesome.

Guilt-easing Soup

2011-11-16T18:37:00.000Z

Once upon a time, there was nothing to stop me from just having waffles, or even bread and cheese for dinner.
Now there are two spectres over my shoulder, guilt-tripping me into the kitchen -- the veggie box and the blog.

The veggie box (or rather bag) comes from Hackney's Growing Communities and, for £6 a week, fills my fridge with a selection of vegetables I feel duty bound to use up. The latest batch included some cavolo nero -- a dark green, almost black, leafy Tuscan cabbage. First popularised by the River Cafe cookbooks, it is now widely grown in the UK and can be used in recipes which call for kale or savoy cabbage.

Once I'd ruled out the waffles and determined to use up the greens, my first thought was just to fry them with some bacon and top with an egg. But, while slightly more interesting than grilling a frozen potato-based snack, this still didn't seem sufficiently adventurous to provide blogging fodder. So I leafed through my recipe folder and discovered another way of combining cabbage and bacon -- in a hearty, low-effort soup.

Cavolo Nero, Bacon and Bean Soup
Serves 2 hungry people as a main course.

3 slices of thick bacon
2 stems celery
2 small onions
3 cloves of garlic
handful of rosemary
750 ml chicken stock
1 tin of white beans (eg cannelloni)
250g cavolo nero (or kale, or savoy cabbage)

Chop the vegetables and the bacon into fairly small chunks.
Fry the bacon until seared. Add the onions, garlic and celery and fry for about 5 minutes until softened.
Add the rosemary, stock and drained beans. Bring to the boil and cook for about 20 minutes.
Add the cavolo nero and cook for another 5 minutes.

This makes a hearty, warming bowl and has the added bonus of being pretty low on calories. You could grate some parmesan on top to serve, as the original recipe suggested, or like me, you could add a dollop of sour cream. You could also add some black pepper but I would skip the salt, as the stock and the bacon make the soup already quite salty.

Warning: the pale green stems that run through the dark leaves of cavolo nero are very tough. You need to cut them out and just cook the leafy bit. Otherwise, like me, you will end up with some tough and bitter mouthfuls in your otherwise delicious soup.

Rex Whistler at Tate Britain

2011-11-14T19:38:00.000Z

Babies and culture mostly don't mix all that well, unless you count nursery rhymes. Theatres and concerts require a babysitter while serious books (I have discovered) can prove a bit too much for a sleep-deprived post-pregnancy brain. Open air stuff is generally ok though, as are art galleries.
So, we found ourselves at Tate Britain, checking out John Martin's Apocalypse exhibition. His scenes of judgement day and the end of the world were hugely popular with the spectacle-seeking Victorian public, and still look striking today. (If you go, The Evening Standard has a 2-for-1 offer on tickets until the end of the month.)
Our cultural appetites sated, it was time for lunch amidst much more light-hearted art.
The walls of the Tate's restaurant were covered in a whimsical mural by Rex Whistler nearly a century ago, then a 23-year-old art student. Called The Expedition in Pursuit of Rare Meats, it charts the progress of a group of seven people "through strange and wonderful lands encountering unicorns, truffle dogs and two giant gluttons guarding the entrance to a cave".
These days, the restaurant's focus is modern British (no unicorns).

In the interests of research, I should have ordered the most unusual thing on the menu, the garden pea panna cotta with turnip, radish, pea shoots and mint oil (£6.50). Instead, I chickened out, and ordered what I actually wanted -- the beef carpaccio with truffle oil and celeriac remoulade (£7.95).
The beef was good quality and the truffle oil added an extra rich, velvety layer of taste. The remoulade -- thin strips of celeriac in a French tartar-like sauce -- was also very nice, but, to my taste buds, did not really go. The portion was also fairly small, even for a starter. I fleshed out the lunch with a couple of side dishes. For £3.25, the mixed leaf salad seemed overpriced - it was literally a handful of standard mixed leaves in a pleasant but unexciting dressing.

The same amount of money was much better spent on a large bowl of chunky chips which succeeded in walking the tricky tight rope between a crispy golden outside and a soft centre.
If you are hungry, the lunch menu is good value at £16.50 for two courses, and includes a selection of wines from the interesting list at £3.75 a glass (served 11.30am-3pm). They have also jumped on to the (now quite overcrowded) bandwagon of afternoon tea, complete with cute multi-teer cake stands. Accompanied kids eat free at lunchtime, and they have high chairs.
I wouldn't trek all the way out to Pimlico for the food, but it's a nice spot to digest the impressions of an exhibition -- this was not our first visit, and is unlikely to be the last.

Rex Whistler Restaurant, Tate Britain, Millbank,
Westminster, SW1P 4RG; Tel. 020 7887 8825

Banana Tree Canteen

2011-11-10T06:53:00.000Z

The food was nice enough, but you really must go for the baby chairs. Now there's a sentence I never thought I'd be writing when I originally started this blog in 2006.

Banana Tree started out some 20 years ago and has now expanded into a mini-chain across London, attracting good reviews. I stumbled upon their Islington branch the other day, and was lured in by a board promising a lunch from just £5.65. There are more exciting options on the menu -- which spans from Thailand to Singapore, via Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia -- but that price (plus service charge) bought me a plate of chicken pad thai, washed down with regularly refilled tap water.

The dish smelt burnt when it arrived, although I didn't actually find any culprits for the aroma. A few slices of red chilli added bite, raw bean sprouts provided some crunch and a wedge of lime contributed the zing. There were also a few crispy deep fried tortilla-ish chips on the side. It was a perfectly pleasant lunch, but no more.
The high chair on the other hand was simply awesome. The waiter produced a folded, cloth contraption, about A3 size. As I looked on dubiously, he arranged it into a cunning seat which attaches to the table with a solid metal frame. I'd never seen anything like it before. It would be very useful for visiting friends and family, or just for keeping in the car for times when your chosen cafe or restaurant doesn't have high chairs.

Banana Tree Canteen, 412-416 St John Street, Islington, EC1V 4NJ; Tel. 020 7278 7565; www.bananatree.co.uk

Oven Risotto With(out) Madeira

2011-11-08T21:30:00.000Z

Have some madeira, m'dear
You really have nothing to fear
I'm not trying to tempt you, that wouldn't be right
You shouldn't drink spirits at this time of night

This recipe must have languished in my file for half a decade, since a trip to the island of Madeira from which we brought a bottle of its eponymous sweet, fortified wine. The wine, I think, disappeared at a party years ago. But the recipe caught my eye again this week, as I am on the lookout for dishes that can be prepared in advanced and finished off in the oven. With a baby, this is the only way to eat dinner at a reasonable hour, as I discovered after an early attempt at entertaining saw me plonking the guests in front of the stove while I dealt with an especially grumpy bedtime.

2 small leeks (approx 250g)
1 large onion
100g mushrooms
350g risotto (arborio) rice
1l chicken stock
300ml madeira (I used white wine)
75g grated cheese (the original calls for parmesan, but we only had cheddar, which to my philistine taste worked fine)
thyme, parsley

Preheat the oven to 150 degrees.
Fry chopped leek and onions in a hot, oiled pan for about 10 minutes, stirring.
Add chopped mushrooms and fry for another couple of minutes.
Add rice and stir to coat well.
Add the stock, wine and thyme. Stir. Bring to the boil.
Place uncovered in the oven for 30 minutes, or until the rice is cooked and the liquid has all been absorbed.
Stir in the grated cheese and fresh parsley before serving.

The result was a delicious and quite convincing risotto. You miss out the therapeutic stirring, but gain time to spend with your guests/partner/sofa/put a baby to bed.
The original recipe calls for Madeira, dried porcini mushrooms, parmesan and tarragon, and claims to serves 6 people.
I adapted it to suit the contents of the fridge and cupboards and the two of us managed to polish off the lot in one evening, though if you add another course (or are less greedy) you could probably stretch it between 4. As long as you stick to the ratio of rice and liquid, you could experiment with all sorts of other ingredients.

PS Apologies for the slightly out of focus photo, I was too hungry to take more than one!

Spaniards Inn

2011-11-07T18:36:00.000Z

Autumn, more than any other time if year, makes me forget my sworn city girl status and yearn for the countryside. Luckily, that craving for red-golden leaves and the feeling of being miles from anywhere can be satisfied a hop, a skip and a jump from central London - on Hampstead Heath.

A bracing walk calls for a hearty lunch, and the Spaniards Inn has been filling that hole for centuries.
It is an atmospheric old pub, full of nooks, crannies and history. In Dickens's Pickwick Papers, it is the scene of a tea party in the countryside, featuring huge quantities of bread and butter. A few centuries on, the portions are still quite hearty, though the food is luckily more varied.
The husband (for whom I am still thinking of a suitable nickname for this blog) had the 10oz rump steak (£16.25). It was juicy and rare, as ordered, and came with some peppercorn butter. Flavoured butter seems to be the trendy thing for steak at the moment, and in this instance it worked quite well. Lighter than the traditional creamy peppercorn sauce, it let the meat shine through more while still adding a bit of zing.

My attention was caught by the salad with avocado and halloumi, until I realised that it was the exact same dish as the one I had really enjoyed at the Island Queen in Islington a few weeks earlier -- the two pubs must be owned by the same people. So, in the interest of trying more things, I changed my mind at the last minute in favour of the tart with figs, goats cheese, pecans & roasted squash (£11.25). It was a good mix of the sweet and savoury, and went some way towards reversing my broad distrust of figs.
The house red was perfectly drinkable. The half of ale came in a cute half pint tankard, although it could have been better kept. The vegetable accompaniments were also a bit of a letdown - my tart came with an overpowering mound of deep-fried greens (kale?), while the steak was paired with some decidedly anaemic chips.
Overall though it was a nice meal in a lovely setting - not worth the journey in its own right but a great end to a walk on the magnificent heath.

Spaniards Inn, Spaniards Road, Hampstead, NW3 7JJ; Tel: 020 8731 8406 www.thespaniardshampstead.co.uk

The Gunmakers

2011-11-03T20:01:00.000Z

Some restaurants pride themselves on having a mission or a premise. The Gunmakers, judging by its website lays claim only to a menu and an address. And, judging by its food, it's on to a winner. On the downside, it means I can't tell you the history of the place or its name, as Clerkenwell is historically more famous for its printers and Italians rather than guns.
In a world of chain sandwich shops and crumbs over keyboards, the cosy pub felt like a gateway into a less hurried, bygone era. A handful of suits were finishing their meals and their drinks when we arrived at about 2.30pm on a weekday.

In one corner, the bar man had started on his lunch. His mackrel looked very good, so we ordered that. The husband pronounced it delicious, and even finished off the accompanying beetroot - a vegetable he normally winces at.

I went for the chorizo toad-in-the-hole, which further confirmed my new-found love of the Spanish sausage. It worked really well with the batter, adding a stronger, more vibrant flavour than the usual English banger. Definitely one to try at home, along with the celeriac mash which came on the side.
We washed it all done with well-kept Mad Goose ale, and I left wishing I still worked in the area and could sneak off for lunches there on a regular basis.

The Gunmakers, 13 Eyre Street Hill, Clerkenwell, EC1R 5ET; Tel. 020 7278 1022 thegunmakers.co.uk; Lunch for 2 around 30 pounds

The Seeds of Halloween

2011-10-31T08:25:00.000Z

I really, passionately hate food waste.
It is an irrational passion, which knows no boundaries of time, effort, or money. I will rush around buying ingredients to turn that random packet of dried beans that has sat in the cupboard for years, or that minuscule piece of meat left from last night's dinner into a full meal.

So, when I carved out this year's Halloween pumpkin, I had to toast the seeds. The process takes the best part of an hour, creates lots of washing up, wastes electricity, oil and salt. You have to be passionate.

First, spend a good 15 minutes picking them out of the mush of stringy orange innards ( which, I gather, are inedible).
Then, boil them in salty water for 10 minutes. Drain.
Spread them out on a baking try, spray with oil and put in the oven for about 20 minutes.
Discover that this is slightly too long, and your pumpkin seeds are now on the burnt side.
Place your handful of slightly burnt seeds into a small bowl, which they only half fill.
Sit down and chew them bitterly as you google to discover that a bag of (presumably unburnt) seeds can be yours in the nearest supermarket for about 60 pence.
Decide that it is probably best not to add up how much electricity you spent on producing your offering.
Display your carved pumpkin proudly in your window and hope that some trick-or-treaters show up, so you can get rid of the rest of the seeds. If I was a trick-or-treater after home-made treats though, I'd be heading elsewhere tonight.

Happy Halloween!

Lamb Chops with Pea, Feta and Mint Salad

2011-10-28T21:40:00.000+01:00

We are in the midst of a house move at the moment, surviving with a few essentials while most of our life possessions snooze in brown boxes.
For the husband, the essentials include half a dozen musical instruments in varying degrees of repair.
For my part, I rushed to unpack the cookbooks - including the thick ring binder of recipes torn from magazines, purloined from friends and stumbled upon on the Internet. This overflowing and messy file is my chief source of culinary inspiration -- including for last night's dinner (which serves two):

2 large lamb chops
200g frozen peas
small pack of fresh mint leaves
100g feta
2 pittas (or any bread, stale will work)
Cook the peas and cool (I rinsed with cold water to speed this up).
Add cubed feta and mint leaves.
Generously pepper the lamb steaks and fry to desired level of done-ness. Leave to rest for a few minutes.
In that time, chop the pitta into large croutons and warm in the pan used for the lamb, thus soaking up any juices.
Mix the croutons into the salad and serve with the lamb.

This would make a good dish for a BBQ, but is also good for pepping up a grey autumn day.

The original recipe, of unknown provenance, also called for cucumber and lemon wedges (which were absent from my fridge) and used twice as much feta as peas.

Polpetto

2011-10-26T22:49:00.000+01:00

Strange or unusual dishes beckon me from restaurant menus with an almost irresistible force. In its grip, I have found myself picking at a greyish, mushy plate of brains in a Bulgarian restaurant in Moscow and tucking into a gamey but not entirely pleasant giraffe burger (the animal, not the chain) in Camden Market.
More successful forays have included nettle soup at the now sadly defunct Ambassador in Exmouth Market and, most recently, dandelions at Polpetto.

Polpetto has squashed some dark wooden tables into a small, cosy room above the equally crowded French House pub in the centre of Soho's hustle and bustle. It's been open for a little over a year, receiving praise for the food and taking other criticism on board - the originally tapas-y menu has been split into small and large plates (starters and mains to you and me) and it's now possible to book.

The stalks of dandelions added a delicate, flowery and slightly citrusy crunch to a delicious plate of rigatoni flavoured with "wet walnuts". It turns out that wet walnuts are the super seasonal young fruit of the tree, which dry out into the more familiar variety with age. And very good they were too.

Given that Polpetto means "baby octopus" in Italian, I also felt moved to order the octoped. It came as a carpaccio starter, bejewelled but nor overpowered with fresh red chillies (£6).

The brief, description-free menu gives diners the option of asking the waiters for advice/translation or -- as we did -- going for a lucky dip approach. Tempted by smoked anchovies, we thus took a gamble on its unfamiliar accompaniment, puntarelle. The gamble paid off, with the arrival of some tasty green shoots of the chicory family.

Among the mains, we also sampled the squid (£11.30) - with a delicious if slightly overpowering char grilled tang - and the Italian classic of pork in milk (£10.30). The meat was meltingly tender, with notes of aniseed and chunks of white bread all but dissolved in the juices.

Largely ignorant in Italian wine, we washed down the meal -- one of the best I've had in London since returning -- with carafes of the very drinkable house red, and pledged to come back again soon.

Polpetto, Upstairs at The French House, 49 Dean Street, London, W1D 5BG; Tel. 020 7734 1969 polpetto.co.uk
Cost: around £30 a head for two courses with wine

Secret Garden Salad

2011-10-25T20:09:00.000+01:00

We've been back in London for a few months now, rediscovering its tastes and smells. Reading other people's blogs has infected me with a desire to resurrect my own, to chart and share the next chapter of my adventures in the British capital.
There will still be plenty of pigging out, but the arrival of a baby means that now more of it takes place in our kitchen than in restaurants. The baby has further reinforced my love of quick meals, the kind that can be rustled up over a glass of wine once she has gone to sleep and before my stomach implodes from hunger. (I do not cope well with hunger, as my husband will testify. I get very hangry.)
Tonight's dinner was just such a meal -- an easy medley inspired by the plum tomatoes from my vegetable box and the harvest in St Mary's Secret Garden.
I was very excited when, among drab council blocks near the shiny new Hoxton Station I stumbled upon this little oasis of edible plants. The garden was founded a quarter of a century ago and is run by volunteers as a haven for local community. There is even a beehive and a pond full of friendly newts. They sell some of the produce on site, and I was given mini shears to cut my own chard -- my first bit of harvesting since childhood visits to pick-your-own strawberry farms.
Chard is another new discovery for me. Its dark green leaves are reminiscent of spinach, but with a stronger flavour, while its stalks -- deep red or white -- are more akin to beetroot. It's in season for another month, and goes well with egg dishes (like frittatas), as well as in salads.

Baked Camembert with Tomato, Onion and Chard Salad
Serves two as a main, four as a starter.

The hot, baked cheese makes it a nice option for golden, autumnal days, when it seems a shame to completely surrender to the impending winter, but it's clear that this year's salad days are numbered.

6 tomatoes
1 small red onion
small bunch of chard
1 camembert
bread

Chop onions and tomatoes quite finely and place in a salad bowl. If you have time, leave them in the fridge for a couple of hours to soak in each other's juices.
Chop the chard, keeping storks and leave separate. Fry the storks for a couple of minutes, then add the leaves and fry for another minute. Leave to cool (and finish cooking) in the pan. Once cool, add to the tomatoes.
About half an hour before dinner, preheat the oven and pop in the camembert. Leave until its soft to touch on top and runny inside. This took about 20 minutes at 180 degrees in my oven.
Before serving, you could add chopped herbs to the salad (I had some coriander lurking in the fridge). Salad leaves, such as rocket, would also go well.
I don't think this salad requires a dressing, but if you don't like your vegetables naked you could add a bit of olive oil and balsamic vinegar.
Eat dipping chunks of bread into the runny cheese and interspersing with fork -fulls of the salad.
If you don't add salad leaves or herbs, any leftovers will last in the fridge for a day or two. Probably not ideal for work pack lunches though, given the raw onion....

St Mary's Secret Garden, 50 Pearson Street, London, E2 8EL www.stmaryssecretgarden.org.uk

The Barbarians in Moscow

2011-06-08T15:04:00.000+01:00

It's been nearly three years since I moved to Moscow and stopped writing this blog. During our time here, the city has finally secured a place for itself on the gastronomic globe, with Varvary - The Barbarians - becoming the first ever Russian restaurant to make it into the world's Top 50 (sneaking in at number 49).

In many ways, the place is very typical of the Moscow dining scene, with over the top decor, a surly doorman and sky-high wine prices. We had booked a place on the balcony, but were told that the tasting menu would only be served indoors, as the strong wind and pukh* outside would ruin the delicate presentation.

Unusually though, Varvary takes pride in using local ingredients. This is a welcome change in a country where distant foreign imports are still the most prized, because local produce is considered to be of poor quality and people want to show that they can afford the best.

The 11 courses of the 8,500 roubles (190 pounds) "Gastronomic Show - Moscow Summer 2011" also had a distinct Russian flavour, showcasing such traditional, unglamorous ingredients as mayonnaise, dill and potato.

A good example of this was the appetiser, featuring "Real Russian Flavour" in the form of intense beetroot jelly on a sliver of black bread (remnants can be seen on the tablecloth in the photo!). On the same plate there was also sea buckthorn (a bitter, orange berry so beloved by Russians it even features as a toothpaste flavour) with curd cheese, shaped like the Japanese maki rolls that are omnipresent here; cream of broccoli with cod liver, and a herring mouse with sorrel and rocket -- a concoction of intense green, served in a beautiful egg-bottomed cup and possessing of a very sharp fishy flavour.

Next came the "oyster", the wittiest dish of the set. The flavour of the creature was separated from the traditional slippery texture and infused into a fragile green leaf, floating on a cloud of lemony foam in a silver spoon. The generously-sized oyster itself, on the other hand, was distinctly unoysterish, served baked under a parmesan crust in a very Russian sauce which the husband identified as warm mayonnaise.

Being a lady (ahem), I was then served the Spring Meadow -- a plate of green salad and fresh asparagus with steaming chunks of white truffle flavoured dry ice around a golden pond of a poached egg.

The manly alternative consisted of a shot of vodka and a plate of intense traditional beetroot soup, borsch, with a ball of dill-speckled sour cream which dramatically burst within moments of serving. Ironically, I preferred the borsch, while the husband was most taken with my salad!

There was generally a lot of soup on the menu -- gaspacho ice cream with lobster bisque was followed by langoustine soup with calmari essence, both nice enough but not spectacular and, together, overdoing the fishy liquid quotient of the meal.

A Russian-style dumpling (varenik) with succulent Kamchatka crab was a hands down favourite, with the quality ingredients shining through. Vareniki, or pelmini as their meat equivalents are known, will be probably the Russian food that I will miss the most, as they are cheap freezer staple for us on those too lazy/tired to cook evenings, though I am more used to them stuffed with non-descript meat than prime seafood.

The fish and meat main courses -- silver cod with peas and beans, and veal on the bone with pepper sauce -- were surprisingly simple, again allowing the quality ingredients to shine through. They were interspersed with potato with dill and red caviar, but alas by this stage the wine had started to kick in, and I can no longer recall how these traditional Russian staples were woven together. Restaurant blogging here seems all but non-exhistent, so google was of no help -- you'll just to have to go and check it out for yourself.

The meal finished off with a selection of honey-based dainties, followed by cute little pots of cream and jam and another potato - this one a chocolate cake-cum-sweet of Soviet childhood.

With a bottle and a half of one of the cheapest wines, the final bill rivalled our lunch in the Fat Duck. In terms of the food and the whole 'show', I would say Hesthon Blumenthal has nothing to worry about yet. But Varvary does offer the most interesting food I have tried in Moscow, while proving that Russian cooking can be turned into a cuisine.

Our time here is running out and London beckons again, so it's too late for me to start a Moscow blog, but I will do a write up of some of my favourite places here - watch this space.

Varvary, 8A, Strastnoy Boulevard, Moscow, Russia; Tel. +7(495) 229-28-00; http://www.anatolykomm.ru/Varvary

*Pukh is Russia's summer snow. In May and early June, the white fluff blows off poplar trees in Moscow's parks and boulevards, covering the streets and getting into everything from drinks to nostrils. The story goes that after the war, the powers that be wanted to make the city green as quickly as possible, and they chose the poplar as the fastest growing breed in the moderate climate. But in their hurry, they filled the streets with female trees, which produce the fluff (insert sexist joke), ensuring year round snow in the Russian capital.

Bye Bye London (and Blog)

2008-08-05T10:41:00.000+01:00

As I write this, it's already over a week since I left London for Moscow. Sorry, there were a couple of places I wanted to post about before drawing the line under this blog - at least for now.

I've really enjoyed chronicalling my restaurant habit over the last couple of years, and want to thank you all for reading and commenting.

As I am now discovering, Moscow also has lots of exciting restaurants to offer (as well as lots of very over-priced ones). If anyone has any suggestions of where I should try here, please let me know!

For now I leave you with a snap of my last London meal - a surprisingly decent eggs benedict and a glass of prosecco at The Tin Goose in Heathrow's Terminal 1.

Good bye and bon apetit.
Slonik
x

Menelik

2008-08-04T15:53:00.000+01:00

The table cloths are stained, decorations include a dusty Eiffel-tower-shaped brandy bottle and the place is empty around 7.30 pm on a Friday night.
Plus, in my mind 'Ethiopia' was always more linked with television images of famine than with cuisine.

But stereotypes and appearances can be deceptive.

We order their taster selection. The first to arrive is a large tray covered in traditional injera bread - a pancake like thing with a slightly vinegary taste. Upon it, the waitress ladles out half a dozen or so different dishes. I particularly enjoy some beans and a mix of barely cooked mince with (I think) spinach. All is eaten with your hands, scooped up with more injera bread, and washed down by surprisingly good Ethiopian larger.
The only dish that we fail to finish is the Ethiopian take on steak tartrare - large chunks of raw beef in a thick, spicy sauce. It's not bad, but the consensus is that the chunks are a bit too big to chew/digest raw.

Still, we leave a couple of hours and many beers later, absolutely stuffed and amazed to have paid only about 15 quid for this feast. Sure, you might not want to eat here once a week, or even once a month, but it's definitely worth trying at least once.

Menelik, 277 Caledonian Road, London, N1 3EF; Tel. 0207 700 7774; Tube: Caledonian Road

Cork and Bottle

2008-07-25T06:54:00.000+01:00

A hidden gem just off Leicester Square. Yes, really. Such secrets don't come along often, and I'm only letting you in as I won't be in London for much longer to savour its delights myself.

Hidden under red awning between the endless kebab shops and ticket touts, the small door deposits you atop a spiral metal staircase. Below, there's a buzzy, cosy vibe of a not quite authentic French or Italian wine bar.

The wine list is amazing in scope, decent in value and wittily, informatively written. The food menu focuses on classic comfort food with a nod to the owner's Antipodean origins.

The husband's burger is large and decent-tasting, but I am smitten with the cheese and ham pie, the house speciality. Beneath a pastry lid is a savoury heaven, a layered tower of cheese and ham... Mmm, writing about it, I want one now.
We were far too stuffed for the cheese course, so finished off with a couple of glasses of a young Beaujolais Village.

This lovely precursor to the theatre set us back just over £50 for two huge mains, some olives, a bottle of a zesty Spanish white and the glasses of the Beaujolais. Like I said, a gem.

Cork and Bottle, 44-46 Cranbourn Street, Leicester Square, WC2H 7AN; Tel. 0207734 7807; Tube: Leicester Square

Moshi Moshi

2008-07-21T17:02:00.000+01:00

The location: Potentially convenient, but otherwise not ideal - inside Liverpool Street train station. The windows actually look into the station and you can watch the Essex trains leave and arrive down below.

The spec: A Japanese restaurant with a conveyor belt and also cool wooden booth-like seats. Part of a mini chain which prides itself on sustainable fish.

The good: The starters.

There's an interesting selection on the set menu platter, from fresh sushi to Cornish crab.

The tempura is also good.

The not so good: The mains. The beef is overcooked and overly sickly. The chef's special selection is far from special - octopus (which I think is too rubbery to be eaten raw), tuna, salmon, seabass. Nor is there much of it - hardly the "sumptious feast" advertised. The 'seasonal' sardine and ginger miso soup is fairly grim.

The service is slow, inattentive and sometimes just downright bizarre. The wine arrives and we taste it, nodding approval. The bottle is then whisked away and replaced by a new, unopened one, from which we are also given a taster before finally being allowed to keep it.

The verdict: A mixed experience, and certainly not worth it for the money for dinner (ours came to around 80 pounds), but would be OK for lunch or if you have a special offer and happen to be in the area.

Moshi Moshi, Unit 24, Liverpool Street Station, EC2M 7QH (above platform 1, behind M&S); Tel 020 7247 3227; Tube: Liverpool Street; www.moshimoshi.co.uk

Katana

2008-07-16T12:16:00.000+01:00

The location: A hop, a skip and a jump away from Trafalgar and Leicester Squares, above a modern but pleasant bar called The International. Looks posher than it is from the outside.

The spec: A Thai restaurant, owned by the same people who own various places in and around Covent Garden, including Tuttons.

The good: The happy hour in the bar, including bellinis for £3.95. The light vegetable tempura starter from the good value £13.50 set menu which came with a free glass of Pimms. The teriyaki salmon from the main course, especially when moistened with some of the sauce from the Thai chicken curry.

The disappointing: The bland chickpea patties in the second starter (admittedly helped by a yoghurt dip), and the overcooked chicken in the curry.

The bad: The service, though my dining companion, who'd been before, said it wasn't usually like that. In a largely empty restaurant, the waitress insisted we had to order deserts at the same time as everything else because "the kitchen will be busy later". (Luckily, when it did arrive, the ice cream didn't look like it had been pre-plated at the start of the meal.) The drinks, for each round, took ages coming, and we were drinkless through most of the main course. Although others had brought happy hour drinks up from the sister bar downstairs, a very abrupt manager told us this was not allowed and we had to pay full price. The kitchen with its dirty plates was far too exposed from where we were sat. These are all minor quibles but they added up, especially as the tone of the stuff was generally far from friendly and occasionally border line rude.

The verdict: I will definitely add the bar to my list of good venues in the area (where it joins The Chandos and The Porterhouse), but am not sure I'll be back to the restaurant.

Katana, The International, 116 St Martins Lane, WC2N 4BF; Tel. 020 7257 8625; Tube: Charing Cross or Leicester Square

Langtry

2008-07-15T16:56:00.000+01:00

What better antidote to a rainy summer and tightening money belts than a posh lunch with unlimited champagne? Step forward the Langtry and its £35 meal deal.

I like the elegant room, with old-fashionedly ornate walls, bow-legged padded chairs and slate place mats. Plus they have phallic flowers on the tables :)

The waiters are very reverential to everyone, from a special occasion birthday party quartet to a youngish girl with Harrods bags and a large hole in her black tights.

The bread basket is freely and frequently offered, and -- rewarding our efforts to make the most of the free bubbles -- the champagne glasses are never allowed to go empty. (Bizarrely though they only refill the tap water tumblers when asked.)

We both start with the tuna loin. Rare and tender, it is offset by a delicate pale green mousse. I am sure I detect hints of avocado, but a re-examination of the menu reveals that actually it starred coriander and Cromer crab. Hmm, so much for my palate, best not give up the day job.

The main course of olive crusted lamb fillet is very tasty though the lamb is a bit on the gristly side.

The sea trout actually makes fennel and anise in the accompanying cream taste quite nice to my hostile-minded taste buds.

We finish with a Madagascan vanilla créme brûlée served in a nifty spoon/plate and a palate-cleansing champagne sorbet with summer fruits. The bill comes with another round of champagne and, with service, is still under £80 for 2.

For the delicious food and well over a bottle of champers (each), I think that's a veritable bargain, especially as here you are made to feel as special as if you'd spent more than double that.

Langtry, 21 Pont Street, SW1X 9SG; Tel. 0207 201 6619; Tube: Sloane Square or Knightsbridge; www.langtrysrestaurant.com

Pearl

2008-07-11T20:13:00.000+01:00

The "modern French" food is masterminded by TV-regular Jun Tanaka, and the name harks back to Pearl Assurance who once occupied the grand building in the heart of London's law district. Real pearls, though, are everywhere, hanging off the ceiling in jawdropping chandeliers.

Considering a single main course will normally set you back a whopping £31.50, the toptable three-courses-for-£30 seemed like a vertiable steal. But be careful, supplements and drinks will quickly inflate the bill.

I am surprised by my strarter of osso buco -- a Milanese dish of braised veal shanks -- which essentially came deep-fried. Still, the meat was tender and as a cheese-loved I quite enjoyed the addition of mozarella. The accompanying artichokes had an unpleasant pickled flavour though and the cold roasted peppers, though nice, tasted like they could have come from a posh jar.

My main course is also not really a winner, the tortellini are tiny, with little sign of the advertised parmesan, and the Swiss Chard turns out to be just an accompaniment rather than a filling. It's a bit bland and confirms my theory that you should steer clear of vegetarian food in expensive restaurants.

Others fare betters, sampling the sea Bream with clams, grapefruit vinaigrette wild leeks and samphire,

and a beautifully pink rump of salt marsh lamb with wild garlic and beans.

In the only desert we sample the dark chocolate contrasts beautifully with the slight tartness of raspberries. And, as all the food, it looks stunning on the plate.

The artisan cheeses come with a £6.50 supplement - a bit much when you only get six slivers from what is, admitedly, a very impressively burdened cheese trolley. We ask the sommelier to recommend a red wine for the cheese. His choice is quite dry and we are not that impressed - something fruitier, more full bodied might have gone better. We are even less impressed when the glasses appear on the bill at around 13 quid each, costing more than the champagne. They are not very gracious when we complain, but do remove one of the glasses from the (already quite hefty) bill.

It leaves a bit of a sour impression. Overall I would say the setting is stunning but taste-wise the food is merely good -- which at these prices isn't enough.

Pearl Restaurant & Bar, 252 High Holborn, WC1V 7EN; Tel. 020 7829 7000; Tube: Holborn; ww.pearl-restaurant.com

Mucho Mas

2008-07-01T09:49:00.001+01:00

Months after everyone else, I finally get around to trying Mucho Mas, a modern-looking (no longer very) new cafe in the centre of Upper Street's hustle and bustle.

On a sunny weekend lunchtime the outside tables provide a top people-watching spot -especially as they serve Negra Modello, one of my favourite dark beers.
It's a casual kind of place, so you have to order at the bar and they only take cash (cue mad dash to the cash point).

The menu is short, featuring burritos (the small portion is called 'Mexican', the large is 'American', which makes me smile), tacos and a few salads. They make the stuff up in a production line in front of you which reminds me of Subway, though the contents of the metal pots look more appetising here. Unless you want a salad, the choice is essentially very limited: whether you want one big piece of tortilla wrap or several small ones, and whether you prefer your chosen meat (or veg) accompanied by rice and beans or cheese and salsa. Either way, you have to pay extra for guacamole.

We tried a chicken burrito (for the record a 'Mexican' is plenty big enough) and some beef tacos. The flavours were fresh, and the medium sauce gave them plenty of spice.

They get bonus points for the jug of tap water and cups on the counter, but minus marks for making diners use plastic cutlery and eat out of cardboard boxes. For the two dishes and the two beers we got about a quid change out of a twenty, which I reckon is a bit steep for eating out of cardboard, but then I seem to spend most of my time these days gasping in horror at restaurant and bar bills.

(It must be a sign of the times that the spit-and-sawdust dump on Old Street that was called Bar £1.50 when we first moved to London has, after progressing to Bar £1.70 and then being renamed as something non-numeric, now shut altogether. These days, unless I am in a Sam Smith's or Wetherspoons, I am lucky to get a pint for under £3.)

So, Mucho Mas is a great spot for a shopping break/casual lunch on a sunny day, but I am not sure I would go as far as backing the unrelentingly rave write ups it seems to be getting on public review sites.

Mucho Mas, 27 Upper Street, N1 9LQ; Tel. 020 7704 2123; Tube: Angel; www.mucho-mas.co.uk (site under construction)

Cicada

2008-06-30T09:42:00.000+01:00

I was always puzzled why this pan-Asian restaurant cum cocktail bar was named after a creature best known for its devastating swarms on Africa's corn fields. But a bit of googling revealed that it was in fact I had my insects muddled up and it was named after a harmless, edible one. Apparently they go well with Worcestershire sauce, but there weren't any cicadas on the menu to enable me to confirm or deny this.

Instead there was a good Sunday brunch deal offering three dim sum plates and a drink for £15. Between three of us, we sampled all the eight dim sum on the menu, as well as three of their alcohol-free cocktails. The cocktails look fabulous and I almost don't miss the vodka in my virgin Mary.

The pork belly was topped with gloriously crisp crackling, but was scorching hot (cue one tongue casualty and much ice-crunching). This was also our first encounter with health food favourite edamame, and I really enjoyed sucking the baby green soybeans on the salty, soy sauce covered pods. The soy sauce also did wonders for the black cod, which came in dainty little dumplings.

All the food was beautifully presented: the salt'n'pepper squid looked stunning in little newspaper cones. It was a bit dry and over-fried -- not as nice as what we'd tried a couple of doors down at The Well earlier this month -- but good enough for us to polish off the lot with the spicy chilli dip. (Sorry about the photo - it seems to look upside down whichever way I rotate it!)

Chilli tofu, nasu dengaku (Japanese aubergine cooked in miso) & shiso leaf (a mint-like herb) looked almost too pretty, and too vegetal, to eat but represented a refreshing contrast to the richness of the sticky spare ribs dish.

The prawn dumplings reaffirmed their status as my all-time favourite dim sum dish, while

the pumpkin gyoza (Japanese fried dumplings) were probably my least favourite of the meal, partly because I don't really like pumpkin but mostly because it was sickly-sweet. Again though they looked very pretty.

So overall we enjoyed the dim sum. But if I want some kind of dim sum benchmark to compare all future efforts against, where would you recommend? Yuatcha? Hakkasan? Or somewhere else entirely?

Cicada, 132-6 St John Street, EC1V 4JT; Tel. 020 7608 1550; Tube: Barbican, Farringdon http://www.rickerrestaurants.com
As well as the Sunday brunch we sampled, they have 2 for 1 cocktails Mon-Sat 5-7pm, 50% off food on Monday with a (free) card, and are now part of Taste London.

Taste London

2008-06-26T17:20:00.000+01:00

Another year, another Taste London.
Luckily this time we had free tickets thanks to an Eros Card competition, so only had to pay for the crowns - the festival's currency with which you buy food and drink.

On a glorious, sunny Sunday, the highlights were:

* lobster bisque from Le Gavroche
* free gin and tonics at the toptable hospitality tent

* parmesan custard with anchovy toast from Le Cafe Anglais
* foodie magazine freebies galore (delicious., Sainsbury's Magazine, Fortnum & Mason's Magazine...)
* grilled squid rolls from Le Crecle
* large and plentiful Cobra beer samples - very refreshing on a hot day
* yoghurt and strawberries samples from Onken

The disappointments were:
* Sainsbury's Taste Kitchen - a half hour of relentness upselling in exchange for samples of uninspiring cheese and flavourless beef (though the sample of Primitivo wine was nice)

* Surf'n'turf from Zilli - overdone lamb and not very nice tasting prawns, with nothing to bind the flavours of the two.
* lack of cheese stalls (there were lots last year, butthis time I found only one, offering mediocre flavoured cheddar for those too lazy to add pickle to their sarnies)
* less fun than last year, with no village fete games from Innocent smoothies, or wheel of fortune from Waitrose, or other such entertainments
* Rhodes 24 pedalling the same white tomato soup as last year

The purchases were:
* wild mushrooms from Fundamentally Fungus
* presticide free strawberies from Good Natured Fruit
* ginger and lemongrass presse from Bottle Green

My verdict: a good afternoon for £30 for two (what we spent), a rip off if you've also forked out £21 each for the entrance fee.

And, since I am a bit late writing this up, here's a small round up of what other food bloggers thought:
* Chris over at Cheese and Biscuits liked the Caipirinhas and the white tomato soup
* Niamh of Eat Like a Girl enjoyed keenly priced English wine and beetroot gazpacho
* Chris Osburn from The Londonist was impressed by the Madeleines but unimpressed by the cost of the tickets.
* Around Britain With A Paunch like the parmesan custard enough to dedicated an entire post to it alone.

(My review of last year's event is here.)

Discounted Dinners

2008-06-25T09:10:00.000+01:00

Another restaurant discount scheme has just come to my attention so I thought I'd do a round up of offers/discounts that I know of. (I haven't used all of these myself.)

Please let me know of any others!

Online:
* www.discountbritain.net: A website from which you can print off vouchers for 20% off your meal at a small selection of restaurants. They also have discounts for some London tourist attractions.
* london-eating.co.uk: primarily a diners' reviews website, but also includes some special offers if you book through them. I remember reading somewhere that they've been bought out by toptable?
* opentable.com: An American website that's making inroads into London now. Online booking, including some places which are not available on toptable. No special offers as such, but you get points for each booking (and sometimes they have offers of extra points), redeemable for restaurant gift vouchers. (I haven't accumulated enough points yet, but it says they are accepted by any restaurant on the site.)
* toptable.co.uk: IMHO this is the best of the lot. It's free, lets you book most London restaurants online, gives you loyalty points for each booking which are redeemable against free meals (though be careful, these expire after a year) and has lots of offers from set meals to 50% off food. The site's pretty good too, with reviews and example menus. They also cover some places in other parts of the UK and in some foreign capital cities, like Paris.
* visitlondon.com: A good website on what's going on in London, including bookable restaurant offers.

Paid restaurant discount cards:
* Taste London: a whopping £69.95 per year for a card giving 50% off food or 2-for-1 deals at over 500 London restaurants. The caveats are that may offers a valid for first visit only (each restaurant has its own number on the back of your card and they cross it out once the offer is used), many places don't accept the card on Fridays and Saturdays and usually only 2 people can use the 2-for-1 deal per card (not so good for a larger group). If you are interested though, they quite often offer discounted membership (about £20 off) through adds in the free Metro newspaper or here.
* Tio Pepe Midweek Dining Club: £9.99 per year for a card that gives various offers at over 1,000 restaurants across the UK. Some of the offers are same as those on toptable, but there are also some places included which I haven't seen taking part in other schemes.
* Wedge Card: £10.49 a year for a card giving discounts at mostly independent shops, restaurants and services. Most participating businesses are based in London though.

Other:
* If there is a restaurant you want to go to, my top tip would be to check out their website for any special offers, and to sign up to any email newsletter for special offers and events. This can work both with chains and with small independent places.
* Holders of Senior, Family or Young Persons railcards can get a
discount at several nationwide chains, and there also offers to be had with a normal train ticket.
* Oyster card users benefit from a couple of restaurant deals as well as other London discounts.
* American Express has a monthly-changing list of offers for its card-holders, including restaurant ones.
* The moneysavingexpert.com website also has a regularly-updated page of various discounts, which currently includes 2-for-1 at Wagamama.
* And there's a great list of lunchtime deals at top marks places from Zagat.

The art of complaining

2008-06-21T13:09:00.001+01:00

When do you - or when should you - complain in a restaurant?

Some people never complain.
I do when the situation is very clear-cut -- the service is very slow, the wrong order is brought, the wine is off, that kind of thing -- and it can be well worth doing.
But what about occasions when there is nothing badly wrong but it's just not that great?

At The Larder, my starter of lentils, anchovies and poached egg (£4.90) would have been far, far nicer if it was hot (who serves cold poached eggs?),

the orange sauce with the duck terrine (£5.90) was sickly sweet

and to my taste the main course meat was overcooked to toughness, both my roast guinea fowl (£14.50)

and my friend's pork fillet (£13.50).

The very friendly waitress duly came up and asked if we were enjoying the meal, and we duly nodded and smiled.
Was that wrong?

I wasn't not enjoying the meal -- the home-made olive bread was good, the guinea fowl came in a nice wild mushroom sauce, the roasted new potatoes (£3.50) were beautifully crisp (though the mayonnaise I asked for inexplicably tasted of mustard), the parmesan croquettes which came with the pork were a heaven-made match of cheese and carbs, and the house white (£14) was nicely zingy.
Plus we were highly entertained by the next table whose gentleman was very indignant about being served lime cordial instead of wine (apparently they'd filled up the empty bottles with cordial to decorate the wine racks, but one of them accidentally got served to a customer).

And yet somehow those nods and smiles to the charming waitress felt false. Should I have said something??

The Larder, 91-93 St. John St, EC1M 4NU; Tel. 020 76081558; Tube: Barbican or Farringdon; www.thelarderrestaurant.com
Toptable is currently doing 50% off food, which with house wine is slightly better value than its other offer of 2 courses plush half a bottle of vino for £19.95.
PS: I've reviewed The Larder before, when it first opened last year.

Ciao Bella

2008-06-18T13:04:00.000+01:00

Ciao Bella is enormously popular - on a wet, miserable Tuesday evening even the barely-sheltered outside tables are abuzz, and the two stories indoors also fill up. There is an old school, traditional Italian hospitality vibe - it's the kind of place where you feel you should know the owner.

I arrive first, and they willingly bring out my tap water, as well as plates of olives and chunks of gutsy parmesan (but be careful - though unbidden, these will appear on the menu at £2.50 a pop). We dither over the lengthy menu and luckily decide to skip on the starters.

The main course platefuls of pasta are ginormous - each enough to feed two or even three pretty hungry people. The meatballs in spaghetti con polpette (£7.20) are as big as potatoes, while spaghetti all'aragosta (by the far the most expensive thing on the menu at £15.50) comes with what looks like an entire lobster. Of the four of us, only one comes anywhere near finishing, though not through dislike of the food. Even the signature tagliatelle "Ciao Bella" (£6.80) is surprisingly tasty despite mixing salmon with dolcelatte. The valpolicella (£14.50) is very quaffable lubricant for a pleasant, low key evening.

Everyone should have a good local Italian, and Ciao Bella fits the bill very well. It would work as well for a large group as a loved up couple. Plus, being Italian, they happily welcome children too. My loyalty, though, lies firmly with Venezia and its dolcelatte steaks.

Ciao Bella, 86-90 Lamb's Conduit St, WC1N 3LZ; Tel. 0207 2424119 www.ciaobellarestaurant.co.uk

Yelo

2008-06-17T08:57:00.000+01:00

After Exmouth Market, Hoxton Square is perhaps my favourite place for eating - the odd beggar aside, it's great people watching on a summer's day.
As usual, we wonder round the square, looking at the menus and dithering.

And then the specials board outside Yelo tempts us in with promises of duck or seabass for under £7. The vibe is cheap (metal tables) and cheerful (bright yellow laminated menus). Our New Zealand Sauvingon blanc (£16.95) is served in glass tumblers of the kind you get in school canteens. I kinda like that, and for the sheer incongruence, wish we'd ordered champagne.

The Thai dim sum (£3.95) features two plump dumplings of chicken and two of pork. They are dense, with none of the delicate flavour fireworks I've had in serious dim sum joints, but they aren't too bad. And I enjoy sprinkling them with crumbled peanuts and chilli flakes from the table's condiments selection (I skip on the pickled chopped carrots though).

But I am jealous of the husband's tom kar galangai soup (£3.95, which is packed with creamy, herby, coconuty flavours, absorbed into sliced mushrooms and a couple of juicy prawns, with a strong kick of spice.

There are lots of big prawns in the salad -- especially considering the modest £5.45 price tag -- piled upon zestily-dressed leaves, onions and tomatoes. My only complaint is that the plate is too small - at least one prawn ends up as a casualty on the floor.

The special features well-cooked seabass (complete with tail!) in a green curry sauce (£6.50), though note that rice is extra (£1.80 for coconut rice).

All in all, it's not a romantic or lingering kind of a place, but seems like a good bet for a delicious and keenly-priced meal. They also do takeaways (so you can save on the booze mark up and sit on the grass) and deliveries.

Yelo, 8-9 Hoxton Square, N1 6NU; Tel. 0207 729 4626; www.yelothai.com

The Elk in the Woods

2008-06-15T12:41:00.000+01:00

The location: Amid expensive boutiques and junk antique stalls in Islington's Camden Passage. We were actually planning to try The Breakfast Club after it was recommended in Time Out, but there was a queue snaking out of the door and patience is not one of my virtues.

The spec: A friendly elk head looks at us from a wooden slatted wall. There is a distant aura of a trendy ski chalet. It's not quite a bar, not quite a restaurant and there's a good mix of people from an old lady daintily sipping tea to young couples brunching on cocktails. The staff are friendly, joking.

The good: The chips - a huge bowl of thin, crispy, hand-made, skin-still-on deliciousness for £4. The bloody Marys (off menu) come with a good kick of spice, and a good range of alcohol-free concoctions (£3.50). Plus, I like the decor and the service.

The bad: The rest of the food - it's pretty blah. The husband plays adventurous with South African kudu – a rather majestic-looking antelope -- and zebra skewers (£4.75). It's a tiny portion - but then it did come from the "smalls" section of the menu - and fails to score any sparks in the taste department.
If memory serves, that’s our second disappointing experience with zebra, the first being in a French restaurant on Upper Street. On the other hand, I’ve had perfectly nice horse before, for example in T’Kelderke in Brussels.

My wild mushroom, potato and artichoke pie is very bland. It's basically a pastry case filled with boiled new potatoes. It needs something to liven it up - cheese perhaps, or sausage, or both. The menu promised parmesan but I can't spot it. And for £12 this is hideously over-priced. About the only thing I like about it is that it comes with sour cream.

The verdict: Great place for cocktails (£7) and chips, but go elsewhere for a proper meal. Hardens, again, is pretty much spot on.

The Elk in the Woods, 31 Camden Passage, N1 8EA; Tel. 0207 2263535 Tube: Angel, www.the-elk-in-the-woods.co.uk

Fifty Six

2008-06-15T12:33:00.000+01:00

There's a pleasantly old-fashioned vibe at Stoke Newington's Fifty Six, with deep fried cheese and roasts on the menu, and the friendly waitress joking with the local regulars. We arrive at about 5pm, for a late lunch/early dinner (dinch? lunner?), and find a good people-watching spot in the window. Judging by the other visitors, this funny mealtime suits families with young kids, whom the main waitress (owner?) makes feel very welcome.
Bread (of a rather dull, thinly sliced white variety) and a bowl of nice, herby olives arrive with the menus.

I start, retro-fashion, with deep fried cheese fritters -- a triangle of oozing brie, and a rectangle of stringy (in a good, melted cheese way) mozzarella, served with a crisp salad and some cranberry jelly on the side (£4).

The husband has moules mariniere (£5.50), and I like the sauce a lot, helping myself
to a slice of dunked bread's worth.

For 'mains', we choose two more starters. The duck salad from the specials board (£6) features tender, pink, smoky slices of duck. The only blot is the slightly pointless smattering of grated white cheese, too cold to taste of much, on top of the meat.

The cheddar, leek and potato cakes (£4) work well with the accompanying yoghurt, perhaps a nod to the Turkish culture of the area.
A half bottle of chablis (£12, or we could have had the house wine for a similar price) completes the meal at under £35, including service. It's not destination dining, of course, but well worth a try if you happen to be local.
It's the first time I've been up here, and I really like the area. It has a pleasant, neighbourly vibe, and there are plenty of other nice-looking eateries. Shame about the transport links though, which are pretty much limited to lengthy bus journeys.

Fifty Six, 56 Newington Green, N16 9PX; Tel. 0207 359 6377; Transport: buses or overground to Canonbury Rail; www.fifty-six.co.uk

The Terrace in the Fields

2008-06-02T10:36:00.000+01:00

The Terrace is hidden away in a porta-cabin-like hut overlooking the tennis courts in the green haven of Lincoln's Inn Fields in the heart of lawyers' London.
I had been on my list since I saw a good review in Time Out some while back, and a sunny lunchtime (a rarity so far this summer) seemed like the ideal opportunity to visit.

We sat outside, on funky yet reasonably comfy plastic chairs, shielded from the bouncing balls by a tall fence. As lunching settings go it was pretty idyllic, and there's a two course set menu for just £14.50, and yet the terrace (both with and without the capital T) was at best half full during our leisurely lunch.

(Increasingly, it seems, people are tightening their belts -- how else would you explain that on a recent night out in Canary Wharf all the swish bars along West India Quay were empty, yet the Wetherspoon's hidden round the corner was heaving, with besuited city types fumbling for money off coupons to further reduce their bar tab?)

The set menu focuses on traditional European dishes, while the a la carte draws more on Caribbean influences. As it was too hot and sunny for jerk chicken (for my tastes, anyway), we opted for the former.

The starter of smoked salmon and crayfish salad was prettily served in a glass, though in practice this made it rather hard to eat as the salmon was not in bite sized pieces. It was pleasant, but no more than that.

For the mains, the husband's chicken breast was moist enough, but pretty bland. Plonked on a large pile of mash and sploshed with gravy (sorry, jus), it didn't look hugely appetising. Also, it really needed some veg/salad -- something the waiter didn't point out when we ordered.

Luckily I had plenty of roasted Mediterranean-style veg sprinkled around my giant fritter of goats' cheese and aubergine, and was willing to share. The fritter wasn't bad.
We washed the lunch down with a light, summery prosecco (£24) and tap water (which arrived after a couple of promptings).

I looked the place up in Harden's when I got home and think they are pretty much spot on -- the setting aside, it was a nice enough experience but definitely nothing special.

The Terrace in the Fields, Lincoln's Inn Fields, WC2A 3LJ; Tel. 020 7430 1234; www.theterrace.info

Eating out in the centre: The Hampshire and Tuttons

2008-05-28T10:48:00.000+01:00

This weekend, I ended up having two un-pre-planned meals in London's tourist hot spots -- on Leicester Square and in Covent Garden.

First, was dinner at The Hampshire Bar & Restaurant, part of the plush Radisson Edwardian chain. We were en-route to the theatre, it was sunny and there were tables outside.

The biggest 'pro' was the people watching (where else would you see a couple of dozen of superheroes trying and failing to push a bemused London taxi?).
The biggest 'con' was the slow service (you are on Leicester Square, you will be busy, hire more staff). After half an hour we enquired how much longer it would be for the starters, and were told it would be 15 more minutes - time we simply didn't have to spare with the theatre waiting. We never got the condiments seen on other tables, plus had to repeat requests for water (for which we had to share glasses as apparently they didn't have enough) and for the bill.

The food - from a classic European style menu - was decent enough though, and not too unreasonably priced considering the location. We sampled the fillet of beef (£20) with a nice dauphinoise gratin (though, of course, not enough cheese for my liking) and a peppery jus, and the rib eye (£16) with bearnaise and beautiful jenga-like chips, crisped to perfection thanks to more than one session in the fryer.
The portions were a good size.
Both cuts of meat were very nice, but comparing them together I found to my surprise that I prefer the stronger flavour of the rib to the more silky and pricier fillet.

We washed it down with a cherry-scented Rioja (£22) and Pimms. The latter seemed staggeringly pricy to me at £8, until it was pointed out that the tag probably reflected standard cocktail priced rather than (weak) spirit and mixed ones.

The following day, struck by hunger and shopping fatigue in Covent Garden, we ended up in Tuttons, which I later discovered is part of a mini empire of eateries around the old flower market.
The white table cloths and modern art on the walls strove for a moderately classy atmosphere.

We started with a bowl of pretty decent olives (£1.95), which was just as well as the bread baskets delivered to other tables never graced ours.
Despite the place being largely empty, the wait for the main course felt pretty long. The fillet of sea-bass (£14.95) was well cooked, with a crispy skin. The accompanying "tomato and black olive gnocchi" was a disappointment though, featuring bog standard gnocchi (from a packet?) alongside chopped up black olives and tomatoes. We also tried the fish of the day with a moreish beurre blanc sauce and green beans.

The waiter-recommended glasses of white Rioja (£5.75) and a new-world-style Chilean Sauvignon Blanc (£4.13) were very nice, but the experience was soured by service at the end.

No one seemed to want to take our card - not even if after we got up and put on coats. And then, when he was finally cornered, the waiter asked if we wanted to leave him a tip on top of the included service charge. We suggested that perhaps we did not, at which point he went on a major rant about how the service charge was shared between all the staff rather than kept by the individual waiters. Surely that's fairer anyway - the guys in the kitchen contribute as much, and often much more, to my enjoyment of a meal than the front of house.

The verdict: The quality of food on the tourist trail - at least in London - has improved immeasurably over the years, and you can now get a pretty decent meal.
Be prepared for (very) slow service though.
Of course, with a bit of research, there are also some real gems only a stone’s throw away even from the ultra-touristy areas.

The Hampshire Bar and Restaurant, Radisson Edwardian Hampshire Hotel, Leicester Square , WC2H 7LH; Tel. 0207 666 0902; Tube: Leicester Square

Tuttons Brasserie & Bar, 11/12 Russell Street, Covent Garden, WC2B 5HZ; Tel. 0207 257 8625; Tube: Covent Garden

Market Coffee House

2008-05-24T15:31:00.001+01:00

I am not sure I really like Spitalfields any more. Sure thre are still some gems in the area, but in all the regeneration, they seem to have swapped is shabby charm for what looks like one of those computer-generated vistas of a shiny modern development.

But hey, I was in the area, I was short of time, and I was hungry.
Alas, my visions of yummy delicacies from the overpriced posh food stalls were punctured by the stalls being shut - on a Saturday. I didn't have time for a proper meal so settled for a cafe on the still slightly shaby opposite side of the street.

The board outside laid claim to "the best toasted sandwiches" - so I put it to the test with a cheese and onion number (3.20).
It failed. The bread had been toasted for too long for my liking, but the main problem was the filling to dough ratio, with many mouthfuls detecting little or not cheese.
Kruger do a far superior version which costs 70 pence less, yet features no fewer than three cheeses, as well as wild mushrooms and tomatoes on top of the onions offered here.

I also tried their special ice Darjeeling tea (2.00). It looked beautiful in the (rather small) glass, served with a wedge of orange and a sprig of mint. The first few sips were horribly sweet, masking any other flavours, though the drink improved with the melting of the ice cubes.

All in all it was a pretty disappointing experience and I doubt I'll be back for the food. But the coffees are reasonably priced and it's not a bad place for alcohol free people watching on a sunny day (though be prepared to be accosted by the odd passing beggar).

Market Coffee House, 52 Brushfield Street, Spitalfields, E1 6AG; Tube: Liverpool Street

Moro

2008-05-19T09:41:00.001+01:00

The location: Exmouth Market – especially lovely on a warm, sunny day.

The spec: Spanish/North African cuisine served up by a Sam & Sam Clarke. (Would you ever marry, or even go out with someone who had the same name as you?) The place is perennially popular -- even on Monday night they are fully booked, but manage to squeeze us in at the bar.

The disappointing: The menu. I don't know why, but somehow every time I come here, nothing at the menu really grabs me.

The good: The very friendly service. The food.
We start with a plate of chorizo from the bar tapas menu. The two thick slices, curled and charged from the grilling, don't seem little a lot for £4, but every moist, spicy bite says it's worth it.
I follow with the succulent wood roasted chicken, served with a warm, yoghurty, walnutty pasta salad (£18.00). It's delicious and the pickled radishes which initially put me off ordering the dish don't taste picked at all.
The husband goes for wood roasted Middle White pork -- and the waiter very kindly offers and extra helping of crisp crackling (£18.50). The meat comes with Moorish flavours of spinach, red onions, pine nuts and raisins.

We ask the waiter about the house white -- he offers us a taste (as he said, it’s “very drinkable”, but no more), and suggests a much nicer bottle from the Spanish list -- a Verdejo/Sauvignon mix (£18.50) which has the zesty zing I usually associate with New Zealand.

The verdict: Friendly and delicious. Though alas too busy and a bit too expensive to be a regular haunt.

Moro, 34 - 36 Exmouth Market, EC1R 4QE; Tel. 020 7833 8336; Tube: Angel; www.moro.co.uk

Bonds

2008-05-16T09:29:00.000+01:00

The location: Smack bang in the middle of the city.

The spec: Modern European business lunches in a fairly formal setting.

The good: That someone else was paying. The delectable petit fours -- of those I sampled, one was intense with lemon, another gooey with chocolate... But then they did charge us an astonishing £4.95 each for coffees - does that make it the most expensive single espresso in Lonond?!

The disappointing: The food - largely because it had been recommended by colleagues, but also because my enjoyment of it was quite disproportionate to the hefty a la carte price tag.
The starter of "ravioli of native blue lobster and Aramgnac bisque" was merely OK -- one solitary pasta parcel, with a mouthful of non-blue-coloured lobster, sat a top a pool of seafoody tasting foam. For £14.95, I want more taste wow, and more food.
The slow cooked belly of pork (£17.95), to my huge disappointment, did not have a crispy skin. I struggled to finish it. The accompanying pearl barley was in a beigey sauce was OK, if a little odd, and I couldn't detect the advertised chorizo.

The verdict: Don't think I'll be back - there are better places near by.

Bonds, 5 Threadneedle Street, EC2R 8AY; Tel. 020 7657 8090; Tube: Bank

Camino

2008-05-14T09:08:00.000+01:00

The location: Very handy - just a few paces away from King's Cross station (and a few more from St. Pancras). And very clever, hidden away in a court yard, which means you can enjoy the sun on the outdoor tables without inhaling (too much) of the traffic fumes.

The spec: A tapas joint with a funky, warehouse-like look. Voted Britain's Best Bar in this year's Observed Food Monthly awards.

The good: The outside terrace. The price - two huge tapas plates and two rounds of soft drinks come in at just over 30 quid. The beer selection, which includes lots of unusual bottles (I'm being good this time though, so don't try any.)

~~The bad:~~ The decidedly average: The food. I can't taste the olive oil or the garlic in the limp pan con tomate, and the sprinkling of dried chives doesn't win any bonus points. The cheese and spinach croquettes are pretty tasteless (though the meat ones aren't half bad), and the calamari are overpowered by the batter. I didn't much like their olives either. The tortilla, the chorizo, the sliced meat selection and the slice of manchengo are pretty nice though, if nothing special.

The verdict: I'll come back to try the beer next time I'm in the area. But for tapas in London, so far Barrafina has no challengers (that I've visited).

The post script: I've been a bit busy with work and things recently, so the restaurants in need of posting have been piling up. This new, shorter format is a bit of an experiment to get me through the backlog.

Camino, The Regent Quarter, King's Cross N1 9AF; Tel: 020 7841 7331; Tube: King's Cross; www.camino.uk.com

Hoxton Grille

2008-05-12T17:09:00.001+01:00

The location: Bang in the middle of Hoxton/Shoreditch trendiness, in the Hoxton hotel, the brain child of the man who founded Pret. You can buy breakfast and booze from reception and if you are lucky they even do special offers on rooms for a quid.

The spec: A trendy yet cosy space ran by the Grille chain. You can also have cocktails and snacks (eg mini burgers) in the comfy chairs in the lobby, overhung by stunning paper eagles.

The good: I like the paper birds, the vibe and the super friendly service.
The rump steak (15) is a very good cut, beautifully served on a wooden board with a mini-bucket of crispy chips (Yes, I know this kind of presentation is over-used these days, but I still find it cute.)
The Marquis red house wine (3.85) and the amazing alcohol-free fruit cocktail (2.50) they offered to knock up for the husband suffering from the excesses of the night before.

The bad: The veggie lasagna (10) - it's just very bland.
And the fact that if we'd been less dithery and got there 10 minutes earlier we could have had the steak for an astounding seven quid as part of their early bird deal.

The verdict: Will be back for more steak next time we are in the area before 7pm. And may be for cocktails if someone else is paying :-)

Hoxton Grille, 81 Great Eastern Street, EC2A 3HU; Tel. 0207 739 9111; Tube: Old Street

Hibiscus

2008-05-11T19:14:00.004+01:00

Few things beat a random, middle of the week day off spent doing very little other than having a long, leisurely lunch somewhere posh.
Hibiscus -- Michelin-starred and recently transported from button-cute Ludlow to snooty Mayfair -- fits the bill perfectly with its unbelievable £25 three course lunchtime set menu.
Inside, it is surprisingly small and very brown - right down to the browny golden hat-shaped glass plates on the place settings. Quite a few of the customers seem to be regulars, warmly greeted by the friendly and numerous waiting staff.

First comes a freebie of soup, served in an egg shell, with the runny yolk nestling underneath the delicate vegetable (I think it was asparagus) liquid. It looks stunning inside the huge white circle of the plate and taste brilliant save for the tiny bit of runny egg white left on the yolk.
There is also bread with very creamy butter.

The carpaccio is as good as any I've had, and I also enjoy the richness of the mango ice cream -- though perhaps not in the same mouthful as the meat.

A giant ravioli (raviolo?) is plump with delicate cod brandade with (luckily!) not very detectable liquorish root.

Next is Cornish silver mullet with crispy skin and

suffolk guniea fowl stuffed with mushroom with creamy mash.
I don't spot the advertised douglas fir, though it's probably just as well as I am not sure a 20 to 100 metre tree would fit in the restaurant, let alone on the plate.

For desert, we have an Italian shortbread with strawberries, strawberry gel, curd cheese ice cream... and an utterly amazing chocolate creation.

With a couple of aperetifs and a bottle of wine (a very nice Torrontes for just £16.75), the bill comes to £5 less than I paid earlier that week for an utterly average two course lunch for two in Chez Gerard.

Hibiscus, 29 Maddox Street, W1S 2PA; Tel. 0207 629 2999www.hibiscusrestaurant.co.uk

Brickhouse

2008-05-06T16:45:00.000+01:00

A fashion for supper clubs seems to be sweeping through London, and it's one I throughly approve of. After Pigalle, we decided to checkout the Brickhouse, which has taken over a corner of the old Truman Brewery on the more fashionable end of Brick Lane, past all the hard-sell curry houses. (Oops, seems I never wrote up Pigalle...but it was very nice!)

It is a small, tall space, with a few tables on the ground floor and banquettes on the balcony overlooking the stage. It's also very white and industrial/minimalist looking - a bit more old-school glamour might have suited the ethos better.

Like in Pigalle, the food is moulded into a rather pricey set menu, but then there's no additional charge for entertainment -- on our visit a 1940s style band complete with army uniforms, preceded by some Betty Boop cartoons!

The menu sounded complicated with swirls of this and foams of that, but in the end the main ingredients were well-cooked, well-portioned and thus able to shine through. The rare tuna was very nice, while the foam effect softened the punch of the wasabi so as not to overpower the fish.

The honey roast quail was also good, even though I couldn't really taste the black truffle sauce.

The braised pork belly was beautifully crisp (to my horror I have discovered that crispness is not obligatory), served with lots of buttery brown shrimps.

The fillet of beef was rare as requested, though I would have preferred a good old-fashioned peppercorn sauce to the actual accompaniment of mustard ice cream.

The weird-flavoured ice cream was also not entirely successful in a stilton variant, served with two tiny warm eccles cakes. To me, the cakes were a bit too sweet and the ice cream lacked the svaouriness of a pure cheese to offset that.

The rosemary ice cream that came with the apple tarte tatin though was rather good, and the husband also liked the caramel milk shake in a mini glass with a mini straw.

Wine list split into good (from 15), great (mid 20s to mid 30s) and gorgeous (upto 179 in the reds). The food is set at 39.50 for 2 courses, though they sometimes have special offers to reduce this at the start of the week.

In all, the food was much more hit and less miss than one generally expects (or gets) in an entertainment-focused venue, and the band was great fun. It's not the cheapest night out, but I'd say it was decent enough value for money if you stick to the 'good' wine (we liked the Sangiovese for 18) and try and time your visit to coincide with a special offer. Shame about the lack of glamour though.

The Brickhouse, 152c Brick Lane, E1 6RU; Tel. 0207 247 0005 Tube: Aldgate East; www.thebrickhouse.co.uk

Hix Oyster & Chop House

2008-05-01T12:15:00.001+01:00

Mark Hix ran the Caprice empire for many years, and his many books on British cooking are piled high on the new restaurant's shelves.
The room hasn't really changed from the Rudland & Stubbs days -- black furniture and bar, white table cloths and walls and an unpolished wooden floor. The decor vibe is somehow modern yet comforting, and reminiscent of the near-by St John. The only additions seem bizarre -- a slightly messy looking open-plan service station in the middle of the room, and what we think is supposed to be an open-plan oyster kitchen but on our 9pm+ visit looked more like a washing up area.
The place hasn't been open long, so I guess service-wise it may take them a bit longer to get into their stride. There were plenty of free tables, but we were told to wait at the bar for 10 minutes. Luckily, their table-laying skills proved more efficient than they'd estimated and we were ushered to a table as soon as we'd balanced our bums on the high stools.

The menu was an interesting read, with plenty of unusual dishes. I was tempted by the St George's mushrooms, which I'd never heard of before, and chose to have them in the guinea fowl soup (£6.50). When I ordered, the waiter beamed and said it was very good. It arrived in a miniature lidded pot, and I momentarily wondered if I'd underestimated my hunger. But it proved surprisingly filling, creamy and indeed delicious. The husband snuck a good few mouthfuls.

He had decided to test their chops, opting for a bacon one, served with a pile of cockles(£12.75) and laverbread. The latter, it turns out, isn't bread at all, but some kind of seaweed and a much prized delicacy in Wales, where they have it with bacon and cockles for breakfast! It was very tasty, with the salty and juicy bacon contrasting with the delicate crustaceans (so either we are less fussy than Dos Hermanos, or the food's improved).
But we did wish the waiter had insisted (or even suggested) that we considered side orders. Still, on request, he happily brought another round loaf of warm, home-baked tasting white bread served on wooden board with lusciously creamy butter (£0).

To finish, we shared a Welsh rarebit (£7). It's one of my favourite dishes, and I couldn't fault this example -- at least not until the husband pointed that the one at St John is at least as good, but twice as big and £2 cheaper.
We washed the dinner down with a £14 temparanillo, a decidedly average bottle and the cheapest offering on a wine list which very quickly vaulted into the £20+ range. The beer selection may be a better bet next time, with lots of ales and stouts to choose from.
The meal took over an hour and a half, which seemed excessive as we ordered pretty much as soon as we sat down, asked for the rarebit as our mains plates were cleared and for the bill when the cheesy toast arrived.
Still, the food was delicious and reasonably priced, there are plenty more things on the menu I'd like to try, plus it's within easy stumbling distance of home. So I am sure we will be back next time we can't get into Vinoteca.

Hix Oyster & Chop House, 36-37 Greenhill Rents, Cowcross Street (so named because cows used to cross here on their way to an early death at Smithfield market), EC1M 6BN; Tube: Barbican or Farringdon; www.restaurantsetcltd.co.uk

Barrafina

2008-04-30T14:37:00.000+01:00

I'm always hesitant when people suggest dinner in a tapas joint, because in my experience the food's usually very mediocre and the atmosphere a pale shadow of the bustling bars we sampled on holiday in Barcelona. So I decided to check out Barrafina, and mark off another place from Time Out's Top 50 list (total so far: 15/50).

We arrived quite early on a weeknight, but the L-shaped counter around the open-plan cooking space was already full, so we perched against the back wall for a (mercifully quite short) wait, admiring the displays of seafood and the diminishing head of suckling pig.
Once perched on a high stool, we started with some wine and some pan con tomate (£2.80), which was tasty though I think it's more fun when the restaurant gives you the ingredients to make your own: a toasted piece of bread, a garlic clove and a tomato to rub on it, and some good oil to drizzle on top.

The cold meat platter (£10.50) featured lomo (cured pork loin), chorizo (stained red by dried smoked peppers)and salchichon (a dark, spice-studied pork salami). We had to order bread to go with it (£2), but the extra expense was redeemed by some very nice olive oil.

From the day's specials, we had some very nice clams, zesty with lemon.

Next, I was seduced by the look of a duck egg topped dish prepared in front of us. This turned out to be pisto (£6.80), a Spanish take on ratatouille.
The grilled quail with alioli (£5.80) was beautifully cooked and had me gnawing at the delicate bones in a most unlady like manner.
The description -- "Lightly spiced with black cherries and plums" -- sold us a very nice bottle of Urbezo (£16.50)to wash down the feast.
For me, the place captured the tapas experience perfectly. Our only regret was that we were too full to try the suckling pig.

Barrafina, 54 Frith Street, W1D 4SL; Tel. 0207 813 8016; closed Sundays; www.barrafina.co.uk

Medcalf

2008-04-28T11:19:00.000+01:00

The location: Exmouth Market.

The spec: A shaby chic trendy bar with a modern European menu. The miss-matched chairs and tables outside offer a view of the street life on Exmouth market, and there's also a garden out back. The name (and probably the sign) date back to the butcher shop which used to occupy the spot nearly a century ago.

The good:

The refreshing cold pea soup with a creamy dollop of sour cream.

The marinated baby squid with chorizo and frisee salad (£6)

The disappointing:

The Welsh rarebit (£4.50) -- bit burnt, and lacking in flavour (it could do with a stronger cheddar).

The fatty lamb rump (17.75).

The verdict: Nice spot for a drink and a snack, but a bit too hit and miss on the food.

Medcalf, 40 Exmouth Market, EC1R 4QE; Tel. 020 7833 3533; Tube: Angel; www.medcalfbar.co.uk

Czech and Slovak House

2008-04-22T20:59:00.000+01:00

The house, on a residential stretch of road in West Hampstead, is advertised by a plastic chef outside and a wooden post from which a sign must have once hung. Inside, it feels like a slightly ramshackle hostel, and indeed I think they do let out some rooms to their compatriots. There's a bar and a casual room for eating or drinking, but we were ushered into the restaurant - reminiscent of a living room circa 1970s, with faded wall paper, a portrait of a grim looking officer and another of Havel, and white table cloths.

I wasn't very hungry, so settled on some fried bread with garlic & cheese (a mere 1.50). It might have been nicer with melted cheese, but it packed a strong garlicky punch and went well with the beer.

The fried goose liver with onion & bread (by far the most expensive starter at 7.00) was, to my disappointment, closer to the traditional English dish of liver and onions than to the French foie gras. But its order pronounced it very good.

The others went for roasted wild boar in cream sauce (11), one with saute potatoes and one with sauerkraut. The portions were huge, and the boar's sauce was surprisingly though pleasantly cheesy. The meat though was perhaps a touch tough.
I liked the fact that with each main one side dish of your choice was included - too often I've dithered over the dilemma of the more appealing main versus the one with the more appealing side dish.
On a Sunday afternoon, the place was reasonably busy with people (both Eastern European and English) finishing lunch, starting dinner, or simply having a few beers. The dark Bernard was delicious and cheap by London standards at only 3 quid per half-litre bottle.
The service was friendly, and they were more than happy for us to linger over beers and a game of cards even as the main dinner crowds starter to arrive.

Czech and Slovak House, 74 West End Lane, NW6 2LX; Tel. 0207 372 1193; Tube: West Hampstead; www.czechoslovak-restaurant.co.uk

Alisan

2008-04-16T13:06:00.000+01:00

We went to Wembley to watch a Wimbledon womble.
Well, actually we went to watch AFC Wimbledon thrash Corinthian Casuals (the descendants of the team that ruled the leagues more than a century ago) by 8 goals to 1.
Personally, I think Wimbledon won because they were cheered on by a womble, and Corinthians lost because of the very ugly colour scheme on their tops (half pink, half brown, split vertically).

In any case, we needed sustenance to prepare us for the spectacle ahead. Alas, it was Sunday and the local Iraqi restaurant was shut, leaving us with a modern dim sum joint named after a Taiwanese mountain.
The chef was apparently poached from Yauatacha, and there was a reassuring number of Chinese people inside. Plaques at the entrance proclaimed that it's golden dim sum won a runner up prize from The Restaurant Magazine and that the joint was nominated (small letters) for the Harrow (tiny letters) Times (big letters, same font as the national paper) 2007 restaurant award (even bigger letters).
The room was large but soul-less in a modern, corporate hotel-like way. It was also large and quite full, leading to some confusion as to which waiter was serving us and to a longish wait for the food.

First to arrive was a dish of char-grilled asparagus, crunchy lotus root with Swiss cheese holes, mushrooms, Macedonia nuts (we suspect the menu lies and they were Macadamia, but are not sufficient nut experts to know for sure) and other veg (£7.50). The sauce was a bit gloopy, but that seems to be the Chinese way, and otherwise it was a good mix of flavours and textures.
The lauded golden dumplings (£2.80) turned out to be balls of gold-coloured dough filled with juicy prawns. They were nice, but I wouldn't give them any kind of award. The long cheung fung rolls came stuffed with roast duck rather than the prawns we'd asked for, but were pretty good.

.

For me the highlight were the prawn and chive dumplings (£2.60), pretty in pale green dough and packed with lots of fresh chives. The char sui sticky pork bun (£2.30) was merely alright, not as good as the ones at d.SUM2. The final plate of dumplings was bland, but probably contained prawns.
But I am being too harsh - the food's decent overall, the prices are also decent and you shouldn't underestimate either of those in a location that's both a)far out and b)next to a big tourist-trap-type venue.

Alisan; The Junction, Engineers Way, Wembley, Middlesex, HA9 0EG; Tel. 020 8903 3888; Tube: Wembley Park; www.alisan.co.uk.

Daquise

2008-04-14T17:12:00.000+01:00

We venture in from the drizzle and enquire about a table for two. "Half an hour," barks the waitress before turning her back on us and scuttling off towards the kitchen.
At Daquise, everything is authentic, old-school Eastern European, right down to the service. We kill time in a pub filled with American tourists ("Do you serve half pints?," one lady enquires at the bar), watching as the weather yo-yos from rain to hail to sunshine and back again in the time it takes us to get through one round of beers. It's the kind of day that calls for plates of hearty, warming food and luckily by now Daquise is slightly emptier. It was shut for a refit a couple of years ago, but to my naked eye nothing has changed. It still has the same red and white checked wipe-clean table cloths, and the same shabby, comfortable aura. There are still a few old souls -- who came here long before Asda was full of delicacies from their homeland, and indeed probably long before there was Asda -- slowly slurping their barszcz (borscht) alongside young families of trendy South Kensingtonians in search of retro chic. The menu offers few starters and one token salad (chief ingredients: tuna, eggs, potatoes), but given the size of the mains I doubt many could manage more than one course anyway.

I have the pierogi, large dumplings filled with surprisingly tender meat, curd cheese or a mix of mushrooms and cabbage, and served with crispy bacon bits and a lonely tomato segment for anyone on a health kick. I smother them in sour cream and tuck in with relish, trying not to think about the bathroom scaled on Monday morning.

My friend is lured by the potato pancake (advertised as a house speciality) and opts for one served with Hungarian goulash. The pancake is huge, the goulash is proper comfort food like grandmothers/babushkas used to make. The only disappointment is the beer selection, featuring nothing more interesting than the Polish lagers now available in every corner shop -- why is that the more interesting beers from Eastern Europe never make it over here?
We are too stuffed to even contemplate the desert menu (which includes more dumplings). With a couple of the lagers, the bill for the two of us comes to a very old-fashioned £24 with service and we reluctantly waddle back out into the English "spring".

Conclusion: Not a destination restaurant as such, but a perfect place to refuel if you are visiting the museums and after some hearty comfort. Another good bet in the area is the Creperie, though it tends to be packed on the weekends.

PS Does anyone actually know what Daquise means? Seems an odd French-sounding name for a Polish restaurant.

Daquise, 20 Thurloe Street, SW7 2LT; Tel. 020 7589 6117; Tube: South Kensington

CLOSED - The Ambassador

2008-04-10T16:40:00.001+01:00

** UPDATE OCTOBER 2011 - The restaurant has closed, and a Japanese place looks set to open in its place.

Last weekend the husband was away having fun (getting bruised by paint bullets, then dulling the pain with copious alcohol), while I was home working. So I reckoned I deserved to treat myself. A lunch in the sunshine on Exmouth Market was just the ticket.
I was craving the bright green nettle soup that I'd tried in Ambassadors a year or so ago, but it wasn't on the menu. So trying to stay vaguely healthy yet colourful,

I opted for a small beetroot risotto (£6.50) instead.
The healthiness was slightly thwarted by the generous splash of olive oil and the white pool of gloriously creamy, melted goats chese topping the vibrant red rice. It was a blissful plate to nibble on while looking through their selection of weekend papers over a glass of white Abruzzo (£3.50) from the extensive wine list.
Conclusion, a fabulous couple of hours' treat for only £10 (plus service).

The Ambassador, 55 Exmouth Market, EC1R 4QL; Tel. 0207 837009; Tube: Angel;
www.theambassadorcafe.co.uk; closed Sunday evening

Number Twelve

2008-04-09T17:16:00.000+01:00

I was intrigued by Number Twelve -- it's not often that you get good reviews for hotel restaurants (unless they are really super-posh hotels).
This restaurant also happens to be based in the hotel where we stayed for a couple of nights many moons ago, while flat-hunting for our move to London. Now we are plotting our departure (for a few years) so a visit to the restaurant had a nice full circle feel to it.
The hotel has had a complete refit in the intervening years -- my memories are all of chintz and flowery bed spreads, but the photos on the website are all minimalist chic. The restaurant is modern too, but still feels like a hotel eaterie, its decor unmemorable except for the pretty flower stems etched into the flower-to-ceiling windows.
The place was empty, which didn't add to the atmosphere, but then it was 2.30pm on a Sunday. Luckily they sat us at a window overlooking the narrow Woburn Walk, with its pretty balconies, so we could people watch and utterly forget about the empty restaurant behind us. Plus we got two friendly waiting staff to ourselves, ensuring speedy service.

The home-made bread selection was amazing and, at £2, utterly bargainous. I could come here and just eat that with a glass of wine and consider it a pretty perfect repast. This included bread topped with manchengo-like cheese, a croissant-shaped roll speckled with walnuts, a focaccia-tyle cube studded with a cherry tomato .... and plenty of fragrant olive oil to dip it all in.

The 'small' chicory salad (£5.95) featured half a chicory head, its bitterness off-set by slices of pear and walnut, in a surprisingly light dressing Coston Basset stilton (they are big on provenance here), all topped with crispy fried parsley.

The juicy Donald Russell rib eye (£12) came with a gratin dauphinoise which managed to be utterly moreish despite being light on the cream and the cheese, beautifully cooked French green beans and a cute shot glass of the potent meat juices.

From the more than two dozen (!) wines available by the glass or a 375 ml carafe, I chose a glass of the cheapest -- a rich, pungent Temparanillo for a very reasonable £3.50. Generally I'd say the place was pretty good value (especially if you fill up on the bread!) -- their pre-theatre menu includes half a bottle of wine per person, and comes at a very reasonable £22.95 for two courses or £25.95 for three.
And they even give some very nice freebie cakes with the bill!

My biggest regret was that, as it was lunchtime, we were too full to try the huge cheese selection from La Fromagerie (£8.95). Guess we'll just have to come back!

PS While you are in the area, I can highly recommend a visit to the Wellcome Collection, where, among other things, you can see every possible design of forceps, a shrunken head and Napoleon's toothbrush. They do great 30 minute tours perfectly tailored to our (my) modern short attention spans.

Number Twelve, 12 Upper Woburn Place, WC1H 0HX; Tel. 0207 693 5425; Tube: Euston or Russell Square; www.numbertwelverestaurant.co.uk; closed Saturday lunchtime and Sunday evening.
There's a 25% off food deal on toptable at the moment, and on our bill there was also a voucher for 25% off food if you come back within a month.

54

2008-04-04T12:40:00.000+01:00

This was my first visit to a Malaysian-European restaurant. The decor straddles the two cultures: there are Asian religious prints and pink flowers which I associate with Chinese restaurants on the tables, yet the place maintains a certain modern European minimalism. The overall effect is warm and pleasant.
The menu alternates familiar-sounding European dishes like fillet of sea bass (£12.50) with Malaysian ones like ayam masak lemak (£10.50) -- only it doesn't actually give any indication of what that might actually involve. Well, we are always game for a challenge and so ordered blindly as it were.

The cucur badak (£5) turned out to be rather tasty little sweet potato patties, stuffed with prawns, vegetables, rice and all manner of spices and served with slices of pineapple a yoghurt dip to take an edge off the spiciness.

The roti canai (£4.00), traditional Malaysian flat bread to me tasted like a sweetened sheet of puff pastry. It turned up with three little sides -- some pink pickled onions, a dark fruity pickle and some yellow dhal-like substance that tasted of split peas. I think the yoghurt from the other starter would have worked better.

For mains, ayam masak kicap (£10.50) featured moist, generous-sized and well-cooked chicken which was rather spoilt by a thick, dark, sweet sauce in which the husband detected traces of liquorish (I didn't). It would have gone OK with duck, but completely overpowered the chicken.

The ikan Asam pedas (£12.50) was much better, a creamy, coconuty fish curry, with a sauce not dissimilar to those found in Thai cooking. Both dishes came with a little mountain of rice, some pickles and a little pine-apple heavy side garnish.

The drinks list is unexciting (Malaysian beers or wines - if they exist? - are not represented), but pleasing enough. The waitress knowledgeable suggests a Vionier as an alternative to the out-of-stock Vino Verde, but we go for the New Zealand Sauvingon Blanc instead (£17.50). There's also a large selection of booze by the glass.

Conclusion: two good dishes, two not so good. Normally, that wouldn't warrant a return visit in an area amply supplied with great restaurants. But I liked the feel of the place, and was intrigued by the concept, so may well be back. Perhaps next time I'll try some of the European dishes.

54, 54 Farringdon Road, EC1 3BL; Tel. 0207 336 0603; Tube: Farringdon; www.54farringdon.com; They are on toptable, currently offering various deals, including 50 percent off food on Mondays and Tuesdays.

Chowki

2008-04-02T15:01:00.000+01:00

Unlike most in Indian restaurants, Chowki specialises in distinctive regional dishes, with each month featuring three regions, each offering three starters, three mains and a pudding.

I started with a quail(£4.25)from Rajastan, the historically war-like, desert state. The bird -- cooked in onion and tomato masala, with roasted cumin, coriander of lemon juice -- was very juicy and had be gnawing at every last scrap in a most unladylike manner.
The semolina prawns (£4.50) hailed from Mangalore, the cashew and coffee capital on India's Western coast. The four prawns were good-sized but a little bit on the dry side for my liking.

The vegetarian curry from Mangalore (£8.95) was luxurious mix of mushrooms and spinach, with an almost cheesy flavour, despite being advertised as coming in a tomato gravy. I thought it would have been a perfect filling for a French crepe, perhaps with a fried egg on top!

The lamb stew (£11.95) -- billed as an ancient Rajasthani delicacy -- featured tasty, juicy meat in a spicy sauce. (The husband's main memory of it though turns out to be the fact that he only got rice, dhal and rotti-type bread to go with it, while those who'd opted for the three-course "feast" menu (£14.95) got four side orders.)
I wasn't a fan of the milk-based deserts (around £3), but I was quite full anyway and the others ate them happily enough, plus there are also ice creams on offer.
The decor was a bit plain and canteen-like, and the service verged on the inattentive, but this was all more than over-ruled by the delicious food. Price-wise it's certainly not the cheapest curry house in town, but I'd say it ranks pretty highly on the value-for-money stakes. It is all the more of a find for being in tourist-central, just a few steps down a side street from the hustle and bustle of Piccadilly Circus.

Chowki, 2-3 Denman Street, W1D 7HA; Tel: 020 7439 1330 www.chowki.com; Tube: Piccadilly; Chowki offers 2-4-1 to tastelondon card-holders.

Tay Do Cafe

2008-03-31T11:15:00.000+01:00

What's the best Vietnamese on Kingsland Road?
Some say Viet Grill, other favour Viet Hoa, so contrarily we tried Tay Do, located bang between the other two.

It's a casual place, with long, shared tables down the middle, and little in the way of decoration if you don't count the gold coloured cats holding up their paws on the back-wall counter. Turns out these are called "money cats", and a raised right paw is attracts money, while a raised left paw brings in customers. I didn't know this at the time, so didn't pay attention, but judging by how full the place was and how cheap the prices were, I suspect theirs was a left-handed pussy.
The menu is bewilderingly long, so we skipped straight to the noodles and soup section (although with hindsight I am rather sorry to have missed out on the soft-shelled crabs concealed in the starters section).

The chicken pho (£5) -- a traditional white noodle soup -- was very flavoursome, and served with a bowl of bean sprouts and fresh herbs to chuck in. To my disappointment, the friend who'd ordered it declined the addition of the cracked in egg on being told it was semi raw.

We also tried the stir-fried u-don noodles (fat white worms) with mixed meat (£6), and crispy fried noodles with seafood (£5.50). Both came with lots of vegetables, though the crispiness of the latter noodles was sadly erroded by a gloupy, unpleasant sauce.
Still, it was all filling, tasty, cheap food.
There's a quid a head corckage charge, or a choice of two decidely unremarkable Vietnamese bears for £2.20 each. The place clearly fails the tap water test by stating in the menu that they charge 30 pence per glass of London's finest. But then with all that yummy broth, you don't really need water.
The only real complaint was the service -- it was very hard to get anyone's attention (to sit down, to order, to ask for the bill, etc) and the food arrived one-at-a-time, with significant intervals.
Conclusion: not bad for the price, but probably not the best on the road? (Though it's been a while since I last visited any of the others.)

Tay Do Cafe, 65 Kingsland Road, E2 8AG; Tel. 0207 729 7223; Tube: Old Street

Divo

2008-03-29T14:01:00.000Z

If I had to use one word to describe my visit to Divo, it would have to be disappointment. I'd been deeply intrigued by all the terrible reviews and had gone expecting... I am not sure what exactly, but certainly not what we got which was damn good meal. And not just damn good for Eastern European comfort food, but damn good full stop.
Sure, the place is ostentatious, with flat-screen TVs in fake gilded frames (luckily turned off), elaborately carved wooden pillars around the bar and the most amazingly ornamental, flower-patterned enamel in the bathroom. But the owners have clearly had a bit of rethink since the dire reviews.
Gone - to my huge disappointment - are the waitress' Ukrainian folk outfits with mini skirts. Gone is the £320 caviar pancakes (though may be these are now in a separate menu that doesn't get given the plebs like us) and the Ukrainian wine. Instead we sipped on a very nice French house red for a very reasonable £14.50 a bottle. We also tried some kvas (£3) - a drink made with fermented rye bread, which in my Russian childhood days used to be sold from a tap on the back of special mini-oil-tanker-style lorries. Alas, it turns out, the kvas of more childhood days was akin to the bottles of old fashioned lemonade in the supermarket. The version here was authentic, home-made and heavy on the bread flavours. Uncouth that I am, I didn't like it nearly as much as the fizzier, sugarier mass-produced stuff. They also passed the tap water test with flying colours, bringing a jug when asked and frequently replenishing both our glasses and the jug. In fact throughout, service was very attentive (the waitresses now wear red blouses and black trousers).

The starter of salo (£7) entirely transformed this fatty, common-as-muck but delicious to my Russian taste buds lump of lard into a dainty dish worthy of any upmarket modern eaterie. The slices were wafer thin, daintily arranged on a slice of toasted rye bread and complemented with greenery and capers.

The khachapuri (£7), alas, were again of the cheesy pitta bread style I'd tried in Baltic, if a lot nicer. (This did make me wonder whether there is a Georgian style and another non-Georgian style?) The accompanying pot of lobio was a moreish mix of chopped up kidney beans, garlic, walnuts and lemon juice.

Of the mains, deruni (£8) featured two potato pancakes, filled with nicely browned, buttery button mushrooms and herbs and served with a pot of sour cream.

The neck of lamb was delectably pink and tender -- though that probably rendered it not very authentically Eastern European. At £18 it was the joint second most expensive thing on the menu, which rather suggest the prices have come down somewhat since the place first opened. It was served in a very artistic arrangement with sides of rice, grilled aubergine and a tomato-y sauce.

We weren't exactly hungry after all that, but the desert menu was too tempting to resist. I had vareniki (£6), a surprisingly light version of these ravioli-styled dumplings filled with pleasantly sour cherries and served with more sour cream. (Vareniki are basically the same thing as pelmeni, only with vegetarian fillings rather than meat, which usually means either curd cheese or fruit.) I was very sad to discover I was too full to finish the rather generous serving.

The cherry cheese-cake (£6) was nice if not particularly unusual, while the poppy-seed cake (£7) came daintily encased in chocolate and accompanied by rum and raisin ice cream.

With two bottles of wine and service, the bill came just under £120 for three -- pretty decent value. I just hope they are making enough because on our Friday night visit the place was barely half full, with most tables speaking in Russian.

Conclusion: by a long way the best Eastern European restaurant I've been to in London.

Divo, 12 Waterloo Place, SW1Y 4AU; Tel. 0207 4841355; Tube: Picadilly; www.divo-restaurant.co.uk

d.SUM2

2008-03-28T08:59:00.000Z

The plan had been to go for Sunday brunch somewhere with crisp white table cloths and live jazz. Alas, the only place I could locate via google that fitted the bill charged £70 a head. (Does anyone have any better suggestions??)
So our friends suggested dim sum near St Paul's, intriguing me as I hadn't noticed any dumpling joints around there, let alone ones open on weekends.
d.SUM2 was a new-ish looking-joint in the warren of shops and cafes around Paternoster Square, which was bravely toying with Sunday opening. We were the first to arrive just after its midday opening, although a handful of other tables filled up later with couples, tourists, and families. The room was trendy, minimalist and not very memorable, though the windowed front allowed for some people watching.
I automatically docked points for stupid name with oddball punctuation, but was soon won over by natty glass teapots and tiny shot-glass like cups. Plus, they let you tick what dishes you want on a little piece of paper which is quite fun. We each chose three, doubling up on some of the options as most of the dishes come in a trio --fair enough as four is an unlucky number in China and much of Asia, but a bit annoying if you happen to be superstition-shunning Europeans dining in a foursome.
Of the dishes that stand out in my memory, the lobster dumplings were decadent, delicate and delicious in equal measures (£4.60). The barbeque pork puff (£3.80) was a pleasant surprise thanks to an unusually high ratio of sticky, sweet pork in the bready white cloud of the bun -- though I still have to say I don't like the puffs as much as the dumplings, especially ones containing prawns and chives (£3.80). I tried the lotus-wrapped sticky rice for the first time, which was every bit as sticky as advertised, and surprisingly a bit sweet despite being sprinkled with meat and seafood (£4.20).

The crispy won ton (£3.50) and the squid in satay sauce (£3.80) were also good. I must learn how to make the sauce as there's vast quantities of squid languishing in the freezer from a trip to Billingsgate market, when we got far too excited by all the different fishes and the low prices and bought stuff with no cooking plans in mind (which explains the three fish heads, also still in the freezer).
There's a decent wine and cocktail list, as well as Chinese teas (from £2.80) in the pretty pots, various exotic juices and a comparatively dull selection of bottled lagers (£3.60).
The service was friendly, and very apologetic for having forgotten to bring a second round of drinks.

Conclusion: it was a nice, low-key brunch, though overall I probably prefer my dim sum joints a bit more old-fashioned and bustling rather than sleek and modern.

d.SUM2, 14 Paternoster Row, EC4M 7EJ; Tel. 0207 248 2288; Tube: St Paul's; www.dsum2.com

La Porchetta Pizzeria

2008-03-24T19:55:00.000Z

We were in Camden for a gig, and I'd hoped to preceed this with dinner at Marine Ices which sounds like a hugely fun, old-fashioned parlour-type place dishing up pizzas and sundaes. Alas, in old-fashioned manner it is also shut on Mondays.
By this time I'd worked up a serious appetite for pizza, so we ended up in Porchetta a couple of blocs down the road. It's part of a mini chain, and looks-wise is pretty unmemorable apart from some pictures of piggies in primary colours. But we did (accidentally) manage to snag the best table in the house. It's not a concept I normally carry much truck with, but we were sat upstairs, directly overlooking the open-plan kitchen and the mastery with which the two chefs tossed their creations.

We started with olives, which I thought were decent enough, though the husband was unimpressed as they'd clearly been stored in brine. My four cheese pizza was huge very nice, and surprisingly light for that particular topping. I'd say it was the closest to real Italian-style pizza I'd had in a long while. The husband, foolishly I thought, overlooked the pizzas in favour of a risotto. The advertised 'wild' mushrooms were in fact the bog-standard closed cap variety, while tomatoes -- which were not mentioned in the menu's description -- provided the over-riding flavour. Overall it was edible, and tasted better than it looked, but that's not much of a compliment. We had Italian larger from an unexciting drinks list. Bizarrely the place doesn't seem to have a website, and the waitress took back the hand-written receipt, but if memory serves me right it came to about 30 quid.
Conclusion: I'd come back for the pizzas and the theatre if we are in the area again on a Monday -- but I hope it will be another night of the week so I can try Marine Ices instead.
La Porchetta Pizzeria, 74-77 Chalk Farm Rd, NW1 8AN; Tel. 020 7267 6822; Tube: Chalk Farm

El Rincon Quiteno

2008-03-20T15:14:00.000Z

As we entered, I was a bit doubtful. By day the place is clearly a very ordinary sandwich place, with a counter stuffed with croissants, bog-standard sandwich fillings and the like. According to the large board above the counter, you can have an egg mayonnaise sarnie or a cheese and tomato toastie for under £2, or splash out on a jacket potato for a little over £3. There were the usual plastic tables and a slightly shabby feel, with the only stand-out being the modest South American themed wall hangings.
It was mostly empty, barring a couple of tables of locals and a large screen showing the football (turns out the owners are Chelsea fans). Not a place for a romantic evening, but then we were quite happy to half watch the game over dinner.
There's a cute story about the owner, Luis Torres, here, and a google search has revealed that it used to be a popular meeting place for theSocialist Worker Party. My Spanish isn't up to much, but with the help of google and babel fish, I reckon the name means a corner for the people of Quitos, Ecuador's capital.
They produced some menus from a hiding spot and all my doubts evaporated when the old, regular-looking guy sipping tea and munching on buttered pre-sliced bread at the table in front of us was asked how he wanted his steak cooked.

Starters (around £3-4) were a little English sounding, so we focused on a juicy grilled plantain topped with cheese and the tortilla -- a thick wedge, served with potent chilli sauce. Mains also included non-South American offerings, including a pasta section -- which might explain why some websites list the place as Italian. Instead we had the mixed grill for two, a huge pile of steak, pork, chorizo and plantain for just under £20, as well as the solo version (£11) which had no chicken but instead had a fried egg. Both were served with side plates of rice and a plain (iceberg lettuce, tomatoes, onions) but very plesantly and lightly dressed salad.

Obviously there is no website and I keep forgetting to take photos of menus, so the name of the other dish (£9-ish) is lost. But it featured a pool of refried beans, slices of sweet plantain, a strongly-flavoured chorizo sausage (a bit different to the Spanish ones), some beautifully crackling-ed fatty pork, a palette-cleansing avocado, rice and two cracker-type things, one of rice and one of plantain. (Rumour has it they can also serve guinea pig, a South American speciality, but it wasn't on the menu.)
We washed the food down with litre bottles of Ecuadorian beer (£6) and coffee (£1.70).
All in all it was very, very good and I am surprised that this place hasn't got a much wider following.

El Rincon Quiteno, 235 Holloway Road, N7 8HG; Tel. 020 7700 3670; Tube: Holloway Road

Carnevale

2008-03-19T08:44:00.000Z

Much like with Pham Sushi, I've walked past Carnevale for years but until last week had never been inside. I'd heard that it was good, but my problem was that it was vegetarian. Don't get me wrong - I am happy to eat veggie meals and often do so at home. But in a restaurant I can't help feeling that meat or fish offer far better value for money, and also often seem to feature in more interesting/challenging dishes.
The place -- which doubles up as a deli and offers extensive takeaway options at lunchtimes -- is tiny, but tardis-like leads onto a glorious little conservatory, filled with plants and topped off with a glass roof. Watching the waiter and some other diners through the window into the main room, I pretend that I am in some warm Mediterranean court yard rather than in a still decidedly wintery, stormy London.
The menu, which I am told changes about once a month, features about half a dozen starters and as many mains, with surprisingly few of the dishes including cheese and not a nut-roast in sight (the more modern veggie staple, the risotto, does make an appearance though, as do vegetarian sausages and mash).
We weren't overly hungry and, eyeing our fellow diners' huge plates, decided to share three starters (£5.25 each) and skip on the mains altogether. This raises no eyebrows, and the service is generally pretty good, the only quibble being the non-arrival of the tap water (though to be fair we only asked for it once).

The ravioli stuffed with ricotta and pumpkin was scattered prettily and wholesomely with puy lentils, parmesan and herbs. I've never had puy lentils with pasta before, but it worked well. The baked courgette was our favourite, stuffed with salty halloumi, refreshing lemon and herbs and served with a huge salad of oranges, non-overpowering fennel and crunchy almonds (must try those in a salad at home instead of pumpkin seeds).

The third starter was the husband's choice and one I predictably didn't like so much. Quinoa is a South American seed and to my taste buds a close cousin of the cous cous, which I usually don't like. Here, it's supposed to come in a cake-form with wild mushrooms, spinach and chilli, but the overall effect is more pile than pattie and the accompanying rocket is a bit oily for more liking. The apricot and ginger chutney is a nice touch of colour/flavour on the top though.
The drinks list offers short but interesting selections in most categories, from home-made lemonade to unusual beers, elderflower-based cocktails and organic wines. We opted for a half litre carafe of the perfectly drinkable house red (£7.50), which enabled us to keep the entire dinner, including service (which is not included) to just over 25 quid -- not a bad bargain, even if there was no meat involved. Plus it all tasted very healthy and worthy, and I loved the little conservatory. But had we been hungrier and gone with the £11.50 main courses, I fear I would left thinking of how much raw fish I could have scoffed at Pham for the price of veggie sausage'n'mash.
So will we return? Perhaps, but probably only if we have some vegetarians in tow.

Carnevale, 135 Whitecross Street, EC1Y 8JL; Tel: 020 7250 3452; Tube: Barbican; www.carnevalerestaurant.co.uk

Baltic

2008-03-18T16:59:00.001Z

I am always on the look out for good for from Eastern Europe, and Baltic caught my attention after seeing its colourful chef Silvena Rowe on Saturday Kitchen.
On a blistery mid-week night we were surprised to find the large but somehow cavern-like restaurant fully booked, but were happy to sample the snacks on offer in the less formal bar with stylish dark tables and chairs.
The beer selection was uninspiring and larger-based (3.00 for a bottle of Estonian Viru) but the food started off well, with some black rye bread. The 'large' selection of blinis (8.50) was portioned more to Western tapas standards, featuring just three plump mini-pancakes. But they tasted good, as did the accompanying smoked salmon and salty herrings. The third topping, the aubergine and mushroom mousse was a bit bland. We assumed it to be jazzing up what the Russians call 'aubergine caviar' (a bit like baba ganoush) but some classics are best untampered. The smoked haddock fishcakes with dill mayonnaise (5.50) were delicate in size and texture but more at home in an English gastropub than in Eastern Europe. The service was OK, The biggest disappointment though was the khachapuri (or kczapuri as they spell it) -- at its prime a glorious Georgian cheese bread. Here it was more like slightly cheesy slices of something pitta-like (4.90). When it comes to cheese, I find it hard to forgive failings.
I guess it all comes down to the fact that food from the region is in its essence hearty, stodgy, large-portioned kind of fare, and none the worse for it. But it does not lend itself easily to modernisation or the world of trendy bars.
Still, the place had a nice atmosphere and it would be worth coming back to Baltic for the occasional live jazz. As for khachapuri, you can get a great one at Mimino in Kensington.

Baltic, 78 Blackfriars Road, SE1 8HA; Tel. 0207 928 1111; Tube: Southwark; www.balticrestaurant.co.uk

Coach and Horses

2008-03-17T09:45:00.000Z

It was a Friday night and the Coach and Horses was jam-packed with people toasting in the weekend. We'd just been turned away from a new-ish Malaysian/European joint on Farringdon Road and were getting rather worried about our chances of a good un-prebooked dinner. Luckily, a door in the back wall of the pub revealed a separate dining room.... which was entirely empty.
It was an interesting little extension of a room, with swathes of fabric on the ceiling creating a vaguely nautical feel.
We picked a bottle of rich pinot noir (£18.30) and hungrily perused the menu. Despite the busy bar and our isolated location (we remained lone diners throughout), the service was very efficient and friendly.

In the salad, the sweet pear contrasted well with the creamy Cashel Blue cheese, while the rocket leaves helpfully diluted the richness of flavours (£5.60).

The Jerusalem artichoke soup (£6.00) was lusciously creamy, with crispy vegetable crisps on the top and some luscious, half-melted foie gras floating inside -- although I have since discovered that it's very easy to recreate (most of) the experience at home.

To follow, I enjoyed the gamey, generous pile of venison ragu (£13.50), a superior version of the tradition spag bol.

The husband had a heart-warming Morcilla stew (£13.20), with chunks of the Spanish blood sausage and beans, crowned with a poached egg.

Back in 2004, the place won the Time Out Best Gastro Pub award, though Harden's suggests it could have become a touch complacent since then. We certainly didn't see any evidence of that -- it was a very good meal for perfectly reasonable prices and with good service. But with, inexplicably, so few dining customers, I wouldn't be surprised if the kitchen gets discouraged before too long.

The Coach and Horses, 26-28 Ray Street, EC1R 3DJ; Tel. 0207 278 8990' www.thecoachandhorses.com; Tube: Farringdon

Ma Cuisine

2008-03-13T19:29:00.000Z

It seems almost inconceivable with recent storms, but only a couple of weeks ago the weather was lovely and we celebrated with a stroll along the Thames. To the West, the riverside is much more rural, and as we wonder past the London Wetlands Centre (we decided against paying the 8.95 entrance fee) we felt like we were in the countryside. By lunchtime, we'd reached the pretty "village" of Barnes. I'd consulted my Harden's earlier, and all the places listed seem to come with some fairly sizeable but's, so we decided to wonder and take our chances. There was a cut little farmers' market by the lake, though I was whole heartedly disappointed by the cheese shop which someone had recommended -- all half-empty shelves sparsely filled with cling-film wrapped offering of cheese you could easily find in your local Waitrose...
We wondered down to the river, and marked The Bull's Head as one to try for live jazz and Thai food at a future date. Ye White Hart (another Young's pub)looked gorgeous - a garden (too cold), river views, and a roaring fire inside. But we'd accidentally timed our visit to coincide with the women's "head of the river" boat race and many of the entrants seemed to have chosen this spot for their post-race drinks. So we waited about 10 minutes at the bar for beers and gave up.

Just round the corner I was cheered up by the site of the cute-looking French bistrot, Ma Cuisine. Inside there were red checked table cloths, a fair few tables seemed to be regulars. The website bills it as "finest regional French cuisine". But my stuffed aubergine was bitter and undercooked - only the stuffing of Mediterranean veg was edible, if overpowered by the lashings of balsamic vinegar (12 with a glass of house red from the lunchtime menu deal).

The cassoulet that the husband ordered actually appeared as a coq au vin (12.50), but by that time we were starving so pointed out the error and let it go. They apologised, but this was in no way reflected in the bill or its 10 percent service charge. The coq was unspectacular. The accompanying mash and green beans were downright bland.
An old man next to us was tucking into his steak sandwich with great relish, and clearly seemed to be a weekly - if not daily - visitor. May be we should have followed his lead. Or may be we are just fussy from living in central London. It was certainly a good reality check to any wistful relocation thoughts we may have harboured after walking along the pretty, green riverside.

Ma Cuisine, 7 White Hart Lane, Barnes, SW13 0PX; Tel. 0208 878 4092; www.macuisinebarnes.co.uk; Rail: Barnes (nearest tube station is probably Hammersmith, but it's a bit of a trek)

Morgan M

2008-03-11T08:20:00.000Z

Morgan M has had a long wait on my to-visit list, thanks to its relatively hefty prices and far into Islington location (ie en route you go past lots of other nice places so have to bee very determined and not too hungry to keep going). An impromptu celebration finally gave the excuse for the trip earlier this week. Sadly we'd both forgotten our phones at home and the battery in the camera died that very day, so you will have to rely on their website for photos of the artfully arranged food and on my fickle memory for what we actually ate. (The hand-written bill is no help either, simply saying we had the set menu and detailing the drinks, though perhaps it is a better strategy than trustring all to a machine!)
The room itself is quite small and feels a bit like the living room of someone quite rich but not very proficient in interior decorating. Their are splashes of the modern in geometric colour-block paintings, and then swirls of the old-fashioned and kitch in the ornamental plates displayed on one of the walls.
We were quickly won over by the friendly and efficient service though, with the tap water appearing immediately from an elegant jug stored on the service station, and the aperitifs following soon after. It was all in such stark contrast to the experience at Beach Blanket Babylon a few days previously, and the comparison also made the prices seem more reasonable. The a la carte comes in at £36 for three courses, though a few of the options carry hefty supplements (as much as £7.50 for cheese instead of desert, though admittedly from a rather excellent looking trolley selection), and there is also a longer tasting menu.
Four well-cooked scallops (£5.50 supplement) are accompanied by a white chicory tarte tatin, nice but a little too acidic for my taste, a creamy sauce (onion soubise) and some tiny pickled onions. The ravioli come as three large-ish parcels, stuffed with an earthy mix of vegetables, a snail hiding in each one. It's a revelation that snails can taste of anything other than garlic butter, though a more generous sprinkling of the creatures would have been nice.
To follow, the filet of venison is beautifully pink and tender, meat at its best, and comes with a gamey dose of hare ravioli. The lamb (supplement £6.50) appears in three guises -- the shoulder is confit-ed, the rack is roasted, and I've forgotten the third (damn those forgotten phones).
The sommelier recommends a gorgeous bottle of French pinot noir for 25, not blinking at my request for something on the cheap side and educating me that it's not just new world countries that can do wonders with that notoriously temperamental grape.
Normally I don't even bother ordering desert, but here it's included and arguably turns out to be my highlight of the meal. The chocolate moelleux is dark, dense, bitter and rich all at once. The accompanying shot glass of mandarin juice is bizarre but provides a refreshing contrast. The passion fruit soufflé was also pretty good.
At the end of the meal, Morgan M himself appeared, smiley in pristine chef's whites, and asked us whether we'd enjoyed the meal, and what we'd liked the best.

So to sum up, I certainly would not go back for the decor - but I will be back at the next opportunity for more of the impeccable food and the equally impeccable service.

Morgan M Restaurant, 489 Liverpool Road, Islington, N7 8NS; Tel. 020 7609 3560; Tube: Highbury and Islington; www.morganm.com

Beach Blanket Babylon

2008-03-07T16:26:00.000Z

The reviews weren't exactly complimentary.
But the place looked stunning through the fancily decorated windows, and we had an hour and a half to kill until the live music kicked off at Loungelover around the corner, so we decided to give Beach Blanket Babylon a go.
If nothing else, we thought, we could spend the time sipping on cocktails while admiring the OTT decor and pondering as to the reasons for the bizarre name (on the latter, I am none the wiser after a visit to their website - anyone any ideas?).
While Loungelover and Les Trois Garcons (Did I really forget to review that place? Well, in a word, it was stunning.) are of the old-school grandeur, filled with things you might find in your granny's attic, the OTT-ness in BBB is all shiny, new and fake.

Still, it's quite something to look at and we had a good view from a rounded banquette table facing the room. We had time to spare, so decided to take it slowly with some cocktail aperitifs. The place wasn't exactly full but it took the waiter about 10 minutes to bring our tumblers of tap water. He re-appeared after about 5minutes later to take our food order, and brought some slices of dry, butterless bread after a further 5 minutes. We were still decidedly cocktail-less though, and starting to feel a bit miffed.
On his next visit, the waiter surprised us by bringing our main courses. But we'd ordered aperitifs, I protested. We wanted to have those first, then order some wine to go with the food. The waiter seemed to entirely miss the point, plonking the food on the table and saying that the cocktails won't be long.
It took several attempts on our part to persuade him that, no, we really did not want to be served the food just yet. Throughout there was no hint of an apology. Eventually he took it away, and brought the cocktails – a Purple Blanket and a Redcurrant and Thyme Martini (both at a not-too-unreasobale 7.90).

They were very pretty and tasted quite nice, I especially liked the red currants in my one even if I couldn't really taste the thyme. As soon as we'd taken the last sip the waiter re-appeared with the food which had clearly been sat under the hot lamp all this time. We asked for a couple of glasses of wine (from 5.50), and he disappeared again. We were in danger of finishing the mains before the wine made an appearance, but luckily managed to flag down another, more obliging waiter who brought it immediately.

As for the food, despite being a bit cold, my foie gras burger was luscious. There was a generous topping of the pate, which melted into the rare burger. I've never tried this combination before, but it seems to be flavour du jour in London at the moment and I have to admit it beats the hell out of monterry cheese. The chips were nicely crispy too. For 16.50, it was not exactly cheap (though a pound cheaper than in their Notting Hill branch according to the website!), but with the inclusion of the foie gras did not feel too much like a rip off - unlike the husband's 15.50 sea bream. It was a small slice, overly crispy and underwhelming. The accompanying pile of fennel salad was quite unusual and refreshing though.
At the end, we asked Fabio the waiter to deduct the service charge, which he duly did, but were then surprised to be offered a second opportunity to tip by the credit card machine. (We declined.)
So would I recommend it? Well, it's an opulent setting for cocktails if you like that sort of thing. And the burger was damn good, but not good enough to over-ride the service.

Beach Blanket Babylon Shoreditch, 19-23 Bethnal Green Road, E1 6LA; Tel. 020 7749 3540; www.beachblanket.co.uk; Tube: Old Street

Fish Central

2008-03-04T17:13:00.000Z

The plastic tables and the unprepossessing location in an untrendy corner of no-longer-quite-Clerkenwell-but-not-really-yet-Islington suggest that Fish Central is just another local chippie, dishing up huge plate fulls of golden fish and equally golden chips. But for every table of locals from a near-by council house, there's a couple sipping wine and picking on king prawns or scallops. Personally, I think this makes for a great, casual and slightly unusual vibe.
Normally the fish options – served deep fried, grilled,or cooked in matzo meal – start from £6.75 for plaice, but at the moment the place is part of the three courses for a tenner offer from The Times. (Incidentally is it me, or are these offers getting worse? Of this year's crop, this is probably the only vaguely central London which seems worth visiting to me and the value of which is notably improved by the offer.)
We started with a nice bottle of Prosecco (£14.95), wallowing in the surrealism of drinking Venetian fizz in a chippie. House wine starts from £9.45, there's also draft bitter and larger and – for the purists – mugs of strong tea for a bargain 55 pence.
From the set menu, my fish soup (normally £3.45) was alright, but did not benefit from the fresh memory of the one we had in Terminus Nord in Paris a couple weeks ago. The roasted Mediterranean vegetable bruschetta topped with mozzarella (£3.75) was decidedly underwhelming, while the large plate of crispy-coated squid rings was judged as OK, but not outstanding(£4.45).

Of the main courses, the mussels were also pretty average. But the chefs redeemed themselves with plates of flaky gurnard (sustainability brownie points, check) and mountains of crispy chips. Ultimately, this is still very much a chippie, and fish and chips is what it does best, while giving you option the wash them down with some very decent plonk. I would also heartily recommend the fisherman's platter (£19.95) - a huge plate of cod, plaice, haddock, skate and scampi which serves at least three very hungry people.

Fish Central, 149-155 Central Street, King Square, EC1V 8AP; Tel. 0207 2534 970; Tube: Old Street; www.fishcentral.co.uk (now how many chippies do you know with their own website??).

PS If you are in the area, there's a new (well, OK, it might have been there for years, but I've only just noticed) German Deli across the square, which stocks a promising selection of salamis and the like.

Searcy's

2008-03-03T17:13:00.001Z

Sorting out through the photos on my computer, I found some from our trip to Searcy's, the posh eating option at the Barbican centre. Alas, our visit their took place back in December – as a prelude to watching their ingenious alternative to the Christmas panto. Since then the receipt has long been lost, the menu on their website has changed and the memory has blurred around the edges, so I shall largely let the photos do the talking.
The room itself plunges you straight into the 70s-80s era – the original rather than the revival -- with lots of brown and orange, and lots of angles. Luckily, any ugliness in the décor is made up for by great views across the pond and onto St Giles of Cripplegate.
Double luckily though they had finished celebrating the Barbican's 25th birthday, and had replaced the retro food menu (think prawn cocktail and black forest gateaux) with more modern and more appetising sounding fare.

Among other things, we sampled the fish soup, gloriously topped with a gigantic langoustine.

Then there was beautifully rare fillet steak with a creamy bernaise sauce and chips that were both crispy and thick, suiting most tastes.

And a crisp-skinned breast of guinea fowl atop a pile of tiny home-made, bacon-studded spatzle.
I also recall a rather good selection of British cheeses, a decent assortment of ales, and a wine list including the Chapel Down Bacchus -- though admittedly for a slightly extortionate 32.85, around double the cost of the cheapest bottle.
Food's also not cheap, but it's not bad value, with two courses for 24.50 or three for 28.50. If you have a Barbican card, you get 15 percent of the total bill (including drinks), so you could recoup your 20 quid annual membership in one or two visits if you come as a foursome and don't shun the wine list.

Searcy's, Barbican Centre, Silk St, EC2Y 8DS; Tel. 020 7588 3008; Tube: Barbican

Comptoir Gascon

2008-03-02T16:27:00.000Z

Club Gascon is a grand venue where city boys can indulge in top-ticket wine and matchingly luxurious foie gras. Luckily for the rest of us, it has a cheaper off-shoot in the shape of Comptoir Gascon. A deli by day, by night they offer a short but tempting menu of French classics, as well as a few daily specials in a low key, convivial setting.

I had the salade landaise (£7.50) – a divine combination of French green beans, foie gras and duck from the South West of France, the Gascons' speciality region. They assured me the portion was too small for a main course, so I took than as an excuse to also check out the Gascony pie (£6.50) -- not a traditional, pastry pie at all but luxuriously creamy mouse of duck, wild mushrooms, and herbs. The husband, a big cassoulet fan, thouroughly enjoyed their version from Toulouse (£12.50). We washed it all down with a nice bottle of red and promised not to leave it too long before our next visit.

Le Comptoir Gascon, 61-63 Charterhouse Street, EC1M 6HJ; Tube: Farringdon or Barbican; www.comptoirgascon.com

PS D'oh. Just realised I have already blogged about this place when it first opened a couple of years ago, in my third ever post (we had the same salad and cassoulet that time!). Must keep better track of myself, and will pledge to go through past reviews and add any updates.

PPS Have now added updates on $, Loungelover, Sacre Coeur and Quecumbar. Have done this in the form of new comments, but not sure if that's the best strategy for the future. Should I rewrite the reviews,or add new ones of the same places (assuming, of course, there is something new to add)?

The Waterhouse

2008-03-02T15:56:00.000Z

After pigging out at Broadway market, we decided to walk home along the canal, and stumbled upon the newly-opened Waterhouse restaurant. Brother to the ultra-eco-friendly Acorn House. The house water is filtered from the canal outside, there are solar panels and even a wormery to recycle the kitchen waste!
There was fresh produce lined up against a wall, and the chef came along to pick out some authentically muddy carrots out of a basket. (Though I was less sure that the pineapple displayed on the shelf above came from a near-by allotment.) Otherwise, the room looked a bit like a modern cafe – wooden tables with metal legs, neatly adorned with Heinz ketchup and HP sauce and bordered by air-dynamic plastic chairs, and a long bar on one side. Though admittedly this was brunch time, and it a few candles could easily give it a more sophisticated air in the evening. The brunch menu offers various healthy options along the lines of granola (I guess most eco warriors are also health freaks). The less healthy selection is limited to variations on fry ups, omitting my own personal favourites like eggs benedict or cheese on toast. Either way, we were too full for any more food, but stopped for a drink.

We chose the two English options from the short list of wines by the glass – the Chapel Down Bacchus, one of our favourites (6.25), and the Primrose Hill rose (4.50), which apparently actually comes from Kent rather from Kate Moss's corner of London. The service was friendly, and it's a pleasant location for watching the world amble/cycle past along the canal through floor-to-ceiling windows (decorated with cute little pictures of water droplets). Plus there is a terrace, so in the summer they might let you sit outside. We'll have to come back for dinner once the nights get longer/lighter and find out (in the dark, the canal is a less friendly, unlit kind of place where it's not unknown for local kids to push cyclists into the murky water).
The Waterhouse, 10 Orsman Road, N1 5QJ; Tel. 0207 033 0123; www.waterhouserestaurant.co.uk;; Tube: Old Street (then about 15-20 min walk).

Demartino

2008-02-27T17:15:00.000Z

A friend was DJ-ing at a rather nice pub called The Albany near Great Portland Street a few weeks ago, so we took the opportunity to seek out dinner away from our usual haunts. There were lots of Turkish places but I was fresh from my month-long cheese fast and some grilled slices of halloumi were unlikely to satisfy. There was also The Villandry, where we once had a perfectly nice if overpriced brunch (though to be fair this was many years ago, before I'd really got used to London restaurant prices). Still, it looked empty, and I'd read some mixed reviews of it, so we settled on Demartino – a reassuringly full-looking Italian.
Inside their were black and white shots of film stars like DeNiro (was he the Rob referred to in the menu, where the Rigatoni with Tuscan sausages and meatballs is described as “Rob's favourite”?), and a large, neglected-looking accordion in one corner (whose long-since-played demeanour made the music-loving husband very sad).

Even though they are not in season yet, I chose the fresh asparagus topped with parma ham, buffalo mozzarella with balsamic dressing (8.00). It was a huge, fresh-tasting plate, though I was a bit surprised at it being served cold. The husband opted for a competent insalate tricolore of buffalo mozzarella, avocado & plum tomatoes (8.00).

For my main, the spinach gnocchi with four cheese sauce (7.00) was ample, and perfectly fulfilled my craving for formaggi. The husband had delicate yet meaty wild boar ragout on a mount of pappardelle pasta (9.50). (Incidentally, I once remember seeing an entire book devoted to which sort of pasta goes best with which kind of recipe – though it's not something I've ever tried to implement at home. To me, it seems, that a bit of cooked dough is a bit of cooked dough, whatever way it's shaped.)
Throughout, the place had a lovely, family-run, regulars-filled kind of vibe of a good neighbourhood joint, as well as a reassuring smattering of Italian visitors. With a bottle of OK wine, we got off at under 50.00. Sure, it wasn't stellar enough to warrant a separate trip but we might well return if there's another gig at the Albany.

Demartino, 196/198 Great Portland Street, W1N 5TB; Tel: 020 7436 2547; Tube: Great Portland Street; www.demartino.co.uk

Broadway Market

2008-02-25T15:35:00.000Z

This weekend was a rather superlative one, and I spent most of Saturday full of admirational adjectives. The first recipient was Broadway Market -- a little gem hidden by London Fields in Hackney. It's a much more manageable size than Borough market, but also filled with all manner of edible delicacies. The road itself is also full of character -- trendy looking (non-chain!) coffee shops intermingle with an old-fashioned pie, mash and jellied eels joint, a pub with a lengthy Belgian beer menu, a hardware shop, etc.
Last year, I thoroughly enjoyed watching Raymond Blanc's The Restaurant, and developed a particular spot for the Ghanaian couple running Spinach and Agushi (the latter being a kind of West African soup, apparently). Well, it turns out they are still in business with a stall at this very market.

We sampled a "small" portion (£5.50) of their mixed selection. It was huge and tasty, though I think this kind of food does work better in a street stall setting than a fancy restaurant with drizzles of this and foams of that. There was chicken in a more-ish peanut sauce, spicy kidney beans, contrasting sweetness of plantain, rice, a meat stew, and a sprinkling of peppery rocket leaves on top.

Ever a sucker for pancakes, I also couldn't resist a ham-egg-and-cheese combo from the neighbouring stall (£4.50). They asked if I'd prefer emental or cheddar, and I chose the former for authenticity's sake, but was taken aback once the pancake was ready to be charged an extra 30 pence for the privilege (though admittedly this was mentioned in the small print of the menu). It was a good crepe though, made with traditional sarasin flour, and the ham was good quality thickly cut stuff.
Alas, that left us far too full to contemplate any of the other delicacies on offer, such as wild mushrooms on toast (though we did by some mushrooms to use at home), or the rows of scrumptious looking quiches and cakes. But, hey that just gives us the excuse for a return visit, and soon.
We did have some well-kept ale at The Dove pub on the market though. It's a nice, wood-covered pub with a slight warren-like quality, a menu of Belgian beers as well as several real ales on tap and some rather appetising looking food.

Broadway Market, Saturdays 9am-5pm, London Fields, E8; Tube: Bethnal Green, or London Fields rail; www.broadwaymarket.co.uk

My Top 10 London Restaurants

2008-02-21T09:59:00.000Z

Ever since reading Krista's take on the top 10 London restaurants, I've been thinking about compiling my own. And thinking, and thinking.
The trouble is that the places where I eat out the most tend to be near to where I live or work - yes, they are favourites, but some of them probably wouldn't be if I had to trek half way across town to get to them. As for further away places, many have only been visited one or twice, which I think is probably not enough to judge them fully. Then there are places which I like for reasons other than their food - like the Quecumbar, where the atmosphere, the gypsy jazz and the garden are all great but the food is very mediocre. Should I include them? Should I go for a varied list (a posh place, a lunch place, a music place, etc)?
In the end, I've decided to come up with two lists, in alphabetical order (so the numbering is arbitrary).
One is just the top 10 restaurants that I love in London and is inevitably heavily influenced by my location:

1. 19 Numara Bos Cirrik. For the glorious pide (Turkish pizzas), the chance to bring-your-own, the huge onion-heavy freebie salads. Unfussy, tasty and cheap dining and very handy for the Vortex or the Arcola.

2. Daquise. A little corner of old-school Eastern Europe in elegant South Ken. For the checked table cloths, immigrant clientele and huge portions of stodgy comfort food like pierogi. (You can take the girl out of Eastern Europe but...) Na Zdrowie (aka Bar Polski) near Holborn also does great pierogi.

3. The Eagle. For the huge piles of potato wedges smothered in cheese and chorizo and washed down with pints of interesting beer in their gloriously ramshackle garden. And the fact that it features in a nursery rhyme.

4. Le Gavroche. OK, this is kind of cheating as I've only been there once, but I loved it. It's the ultimate experience of old-fashioned elegant dining, and the lunchtime menu is a (relative!) bargain.

5. Le Mercury. For cheap, tasty food and dripping candles in a slightly ramshackle house.
(Little Bay comes a close second in this genre.)

6 .Portal. For posh Portuguese in a stylish, modern setting.

7. St John. Forget the restaurant and sit in the warehouse-chic bar, order some Greenwich Meantime beer and pig out on all manner of things on toast, especially the bone marrow. The branch in Spitalfields is also very good.

8. Venezia. My neighbourhood old fashioned Italian, where the bruschettas, the fillet steak with dolcelatte and the sauté potatoes are always perfect. Comfort food at its best (and hence one for the locals, as I think travelling rather defeats the point of comfort food).

9. Vinoteca. For the wine, the ever-changing food menu, the friendly staff - pretty much for every reason really. This is my favourite favourite.

10. Mela. For gorgeous, unusual Indian food - a real change from Brick Lane staples, and all the more surprising for the tourist-central location.

The second is a list of five places I tried once in the past year and really liked, but feel I need to go back to before I decide if they are worthy of promotion to the first list.

1. Angelus. For the foie gras.
2. J Sheekey. Don't think I ever actually got round to writing a review (so the link is to Time Out), but I was bowled by the fish, the pint of prawns served in a pewter tankard and the attentive service.
3. Metrogusto. For unusual Italian food.
4. Rules. For an eating experience from another era.
5. Shanghai Blues. For elegance, cocktails and jazz.

And what are your top 10, or even top 5?

Royal China

2008-02-20T16:52:00.000Z

Enter into Royal China and you are immediately transported far, far from the stylish bars and glass towers world of Canary Wharf and into a typical Chinese restaurant in England any year between now and, ooh, 1980. There are large, round tables with the lazy-susans, a yellow colour scheme, leather-bound menus, waitresses in "traditional" dress. (Just make sure you avoid the windows, or the stunnning riverside views of modern skyscrapers will ruin the illusion.)
But it's the food, not the decor that packs this place every lunchtime with local workers, and secures it a good reputation amongst those who've spent years in Asia.
There's a good value, two course business lunch on offer for GBP 11, but for my money (and not very much of it, espesially considering this is the Wharf) you really can't beat the dim sum.
There are daily specials such abalone, or prawns in parma ham, but this time we opted for the main menu.

The steamed curry squid (2.40) brought a plate of tiny little molluscs, yellowed by the spicy sauce, the ubiquitous bamboo box locking in the aromas.

The prawn and chive dumplings (2.85 for three) were arguably the star of the show - piles of green, fresh chives contrasting in colour in flavour with big, juicy prawns inside little parcels the mastery of which never ceases to amaze me.

The equi-priced scallop dumplings were a lot less interesting but still nice.
Then came the Royal China's signature cheung fun (3.20 for three) -- long, mini-pancake rolls of the dumpling dough filled with prawns, pork and spices. The final dish of dry shrimp cheung fun (2.85) was left largely uneaten, basically because we were stuffed (even though the waitress had suggested we might want to order more) and partly because dried shrimp ain't a patch on big juicy prawns.
Throw in a couple of tsing taos (3.50 each) and you can have a very filling and tasty meal for two with service (added at 13 percent) for under 30 quid. Be careful though - we ordered a side of pak choy, which was delicately flavoured with ginger and garlic. But its deliciousness was somewhat reduced when the bill revealed the 8.20 price tag, which on closer examination turned out to be in line with other side dishes.
But hey, when the prawns are cheap who cares about the veg? This is almost certainly my favourite venue in the area so far.

Royal China Riverside, 20 West Ferry Circus, E14 8RR; Tel. 0207 719 0888; Tube: Canary Wharf; www.rcguk.hk

Europe's longest most disappointing champagne bar.

2008-02-18T15:27:00.000Z

Although in real life I am more likely to be found on the megabus than on the Orient Express, I do love the idea of elegant travel and was thus rather excited by the opening of the Europe's longest champagne bar in St. Pancras. It seemed like the perfect place to start a trip to Paris. St Pancras itself has scrubbed up beautifully, and is stunning - especially the glass ceiling criss-crossed by delicate-blue metal supports. We swished past the shops (all Pain Quotidien this and Foyles that and not a greasy pasty in sight), and followed the signs up the escalator to the bar. And did a double-take.

People were huddled around three sides of a rectangular shaped bar that was, at most, ooh, 15 metres long. Closer examination revealed that there were two long (non-connected) off shoots to either side, where people could sit in booth formation, or stand/perch around high tables. Supposedly these offshoots create the longest serving area for the fizzy stuff, thus justifying the lofty claim.

Despite its famed length, the "bar" offers limited seating spaces and on our visit was pretty full with travellers -- some going the whole hog with a bottle for two, others sipping demurely on cups of tea (why would you go to a champagne bar, on your own, and order tea?!), and one couple for whom the champagne clearly hadn't sparked any romance -- they were barricaded against any conversation by each other's lap top screens.
We sampled the two cheapest options (£8.50 by the glass) which were distinctly different in flavour -- one almost sherry like in its dryness, the other more-traditional tasting and more pleasant – and treated ourselves to five parmesan cheese straws for £3.50.

The menu includes various snacky foods and even a special selection of Valentine's canapés. For £80 you get a nice bottle of champers and a platter for two including oysters, quail's eggs and other delicacies. In fairness, it's much better value than many seasonal offerings, but then you may well lose brownie points when your sweet nothings are interrupted by "This is a security announcement..." bellowing from the station's tannoy…

Champagne Bar, St Pancras Station, NW1 2QP; Tube: Kings Cross; www.stpancras.com/drink/champagne-bar/

My Funny Valentine

2008-02-14T11:52:00.000Z

Reading about blood diamonds, chocolate made by child labour and pesticide-poisoned roses put me in a suitably cheery mood for Valentine's Day, so I thought I would mark it with a brief summary of restaurants that are no more.

Thus Ember on Turmill Street has shut its doors before I ever got round to visiting. It was a trendy-looking bar (all low leather stools and dark lighting), with a trendy-looking menu (cocktails and platters), but somehow just never seemed that tempting compared to, say, the buzz of The Castle pub next door or the relatively new St Germain brasserie a little further up the road. And now, I've missed the opportunity. Ah well.

Another recently spotted demise is the Epicurean Lounge -- a self-styled gourmet pizza joint on Clerkenwell Green. Technically it's still going, according to its website, but it's now only open for private functions. This one I did manage to visit, and was bemused by the fillet steak topped pizza. It was good steak, and good pizza. But I was not convinced that either benefited from the combination, or by the price tag pushing £20. They also used to do lobster pizza...

The third depature is of the all-you-can-eat Covent Garden sushi joint, Gili Gulu. Sure, the rice-to-fish ratio on their maki left a lot to be desired. But it was still raw fish and you could eat as much as you liked (cue plate-stacking competitons from the lads). Still, I've discovered a new and nicer venue that offers a similar deal, Hi Sushi. I liked the one in Soho, but their Camden branch also attracts decent reviews.

PS Perhaps because I eat quite a lot anyway, I've never really felt the need/desire to fork out the you-must-feel-romantic-this-evening-or-else, look-we've-even-thrown-in-some-oysters-and-a-"free"-glass-of-cheap-fizz-in-the-process-of-doubling-our-usual-prices kind of Valentine's meals. Where do other regular eat-outers stand on this??

Red'n'Hot

2008-02-13T13:05:00.000Z

On our trip to China this summer, one of the most memorable good meals was a Sichuna hot pot, so I was keen to check out a place serving them with the husband spotted on the edges of China town. Arriving at the designated spot, I thought it must have shut as all I could see was a shabby place serving one of those gloopy-looking all you can eat buffets. However a peek through the window revealed that all the diners looked Chinese and many seemed to be eating stuff unspotted on the hot trays. We braved it -- and were very glad we did. Tellingly, the only English bit of their website is the street addresses (turns out they also have branches in Manchester and Birmingham, but I wasn't the only one off to be thrown by appearances. The waitress confirmed that they did indeed serve hotpot for £20 per person and brought a large electric hot-plate type device.

Then the hot pot itself arrived with red-chili-flecked stock around the outside basin and non-spicy stuff in the middle. They are not licensed, but the frequently replenished Chinese tea probably did a better job in quenching the fire of the chilli than beer or wine.
We filled our little bowls with garlic, chillies, oil and herbs from the condiments selection on a table round the back (but decided to skip on the MSG), ready for dipping the cooked food into.

And then the platter arrived. It was huge. Ginormous. And they said they'd bring more of anything if we finished. There were huge prawns, fish balls, red slivers of beef (very easy to overcook), mushrooms, greens, noodles, potatoes, sausages, etc, etc. We took turns to drop things in the pot and fish out moments later. Despite the grotty setting it felt like a feast for kings -- and I reckon was big enough to satisfy even Henry VIII's appetite! And all for the price of four poached eggs (sorry, I still can't get over at pricing).
Red'n'Hot; 59 Charing Cross Road, WC2H 0NE; Tel. 0207734 8796; Tube: Leicester Square; www.rednhotgroup.com

Rivington Grill

2008-02-11T17:08:00.000Z

In restaurants, as everywhere else in life, things will go wrong. The crux is how such incidents are handled. Some places are staunchly unapologetic, pretending nothing is wrong – in my experience these have included Flaneur and the now-defunct Abbaye where they didn't seem in the least bit bothered that we barely touched the two large bowls of mussels.
Others though realise that they can yet save the day – and your future custom.
On a recent visit to Rivington Grill, one of the party had another appointment to rush off to, so we asked whether an hour would be enough time for two courses, and received an affirmative answer. In the event, the main courses were nowhere to be seen by the time he had to leave, but the staff were apologetic and happily canceled his order. Don't feel to sorry for him though because I think he won with the starter – a large mount of tiny, meaty potted shrimps on toast for (an admitedly rather hefty) £8.75.

My wild mushrooms (£8.75) were nice, but had been dumped on the toast just before serving, meaning that, unlike in the Fox & Anchor, the bread hadn't had the opportunity to soak up all the lovely cooking juices.

The eel salad (£7.75) came with beetroot (seemingly a very trendy ingredient these days, but not everyone's cup of borscht) and a lovely sour-creamy, horseradishy sauce.

On the main courses, I think won with the scallops – three large beasts in their shells, teamed with some delicate mash and crispy bacon (£15.50). The suckling pig – served with some deliciously buttery green beans -- also got the thumbs up from its eater (£15.75).
But the grilled sea bream (£15.50) was hopelessly overcooked and left largely uneaten. The friendly waitress picked up on this immediately, agreed that it looked overdone and took it off the bill – although I suppose in an ideal world someone should have noticed before it left the kitchen.
That (together with a delicious dark chocolate mousse for desert, £5.75) ensured that we were left with a pleasant taste after the dinner.
There is a lot to like about the Rivington Grill. It is a stylish white room, with a few quirky touches, like some lights that spell out f*cking beautiful (my starts for fear of your internet propriety settings) backwards and a mirror on the next wall for easy decoding. The menu is the kind of modern British food that's becoming a bit of a cliché but still tastes damn good (however many times I see it, I can't help smiling at places which have an 'on toast' section). The staff are friendly. There's a big long bar where you can drink and snack to your heart's content. There's lots of beer on offer, from St Peter's to Grenwich Meantime breweries among others, and English wines.
I suppose my main quibble would be the fact that along with following all the other modern British restaurant trends, it's signed upto the aggressive pricing one too. Even with the deductions the bill came to £153.23 for what eventually was 4 starters, 2 mains, 1 desert, 2 bottles of wine and 3 beers, including service. Sure, it's miles (or pounds) away from the five quid egg, but it seems like quite a lot.
Then again may be I've just got them pre-pay-day blues!
Rivington Grill, 28-30 Rivington Street, EC2A 3DZ; Tel.020 7729 7053 www.rivingtongrill.co.uk; Tube: Old Street

PS Have just realised that they are owned by the same people as The Ivy and J. Sheeky – so perhaps I should be less surprised at the prices!

Kolossi Grill

2008-02-08T09:44:00.000Z

Exmouth market is full of great places to eat*, so it's perhaps unsurprising that for years we'd entirely overlooked a little corner Greek place just off the main drag.
Passing by one day though I was attracted by a rather good review from Hardens in the window (think it was from a previous year, though the current one's not bad either). It was a Friday night, but they managed to squeeze us in.
The place ain't gonna win any modern design awards, but I loved all the vines strewn across the ceiling, the friendly Cypriotic waiters (who seemed to hark back to the days or the countries where being a waiter is a sought-after career full of men well past their middle age mark) and the buzz created by the close together tables and the small groups of regulars dining around us.
I loved the exclusively Cypriotic wine list too (though I was slightly less enamoured with our bottle of white Aphrodite).
Now all they had to do is provide some half way edible food and they'd have another couple of regulars.
Alas, it was not too be. We had the souvla meze, a wealth of dishes most of which -- starting with the houmous -- fell firmly in the blah category.
Some, like the taramasalata, the greasy calamari or, more importantly the main course of souvla (prime cuts of lamb cooked over an open fire) were unpleasant. Sure, I enjoyed the freshness of the Greek salad, the grilled halloumi cheese and the flavour-full, buttery marinated mushrooms. And I was more than full without having more than a mouthful of the dishes I actively disliked -- too full to be tempted by the fruit platter which also comes as part of the set meal.
But however much I liked the place and the atmosphere, and however much I irrationally feel guilty for giving it the thumbs down, I just can't overlook the fact that the food in neighbouring Sofra tastes nicer -- and that's saying something.
Kolossi Grill, 56-60 Rosebury Avenue, EC1R 4RR; Tel. 0207 2785758 Tube: Angel; www.kolossigrill.com

* Oops, putting in the links for that bit has made me realised that I've never really reviewed my favourite places on the stretch, namely The Ambassador (where I learned to love nettle soup) and Moro. Perfect - an excuse for return visits to both, and soon!

The mind boggles...

2008-02-07T10:30:00.000Z

Mostly, as you know, this blog is about restaurants. But sometimes I am so struck by some non-restaurant food or concept, that I just have to share it with you (OK, more realistically, to share it with myself in an internet context).

To cut a long story short, today I discovered that you can buy a cheeseburger burger. In a tin. Which you boil.
In the picture, this tinned, boiled burger actually looks surprisingly appetising -- with lettuce, onions, tomatoes... And at 257 calories and 3.95 euros it's not only healthy but cheap. Gastro pubs eat your heart out. Or not...

Given my experience of eating in Berlin (a boiled fillet steak comes to mind) I am not surprised that this delicacy is available from a German website.

PS If you want to expand your food-blog-reading repertoire, check out the links from the Foodie Blogroll which has now appeared in the right hand margin.

Marks & Spencer's Cafe Revive

2008-02-05T17:55:00.000Z

I don't normally review sandwich places, but I was very impressed with my lunch today so I thought I'd mention it. As well as the usual array of posh ready meals (and basics like miniature tins of dog food for the strange people who do their entire weekly shop there!) some of the bigger food sections of M&S have a cafe section offering hot food. Setting wise, of course, eating inside a supermarket is a bit of bizarre experience. At lunchtime near Moorgate, I'd say the hustle and bustle was probably to manic for chilled people watching, and there was a longish queue for the food (you pay, get given a number receipt and wait). But, in a world of cold sandwiches and the odd jacket potato or toasted ciabatta, they offer a refreshingly diverse selection of hot meals. There's various burgers, pizza and specials which today included a red thai curry and a chili con carne. For me though, it had to be the cheese burger. For under £4, you get a nice, chunky roll with a good crust (none of your namby-pamby burger baps), filled with fresh tomato relish, salad, cheese and, of course, a burger. For an extra quid, the meal deal also adds in some luscious, crispy-coated, hand-made-looking and -tasting chips and a drink. That's not far off what you might pay for a McDonald's or Burger King, but taste-wise it's miles and miles away. My only quibble was that the burger could have been a bit less well done, but overall it was much nicer than most specimens I've sampled in gastropubs for twice the price or more.
Marks & Spencer's Cafe Revive, 70 Finsbury Pavement; London; EC2A 1SA; Tube: Moorgate or Liverpool Street (and other branches, including Canary Wharf)

Gaucho Grill - moo!

2008-02-01T09:04:00.000Z

Sure, the Gaucho is a gimmicky chain. But I liked it -- starting with the chairs covered in black and white splodges of fake cow fur. It's a business lunch kind of place in a business lunch kind of location. (Apparently it's open on Sundays too, with live music, but for me it's an implausible image.)
Before we've had a chance to look at the menu, a waitress comes up with a wooden board featuring several slabs of red, raw meat. She explains what the different cuts are and what level of cooking (rare, medium, etc) is best for each. A nice touch (my companion jokes that this would be the ideal place to take a vegetarian), but it's too much detail to digest in one go and her strong accent doesn't really help so they might be better off just having a more informative menu.
Bizarrely the two suits in the next table are both having fish. We play the game though. I discover that 300 grams of rump (£13.50) is actually a huge portion, but it's nicely rare and flavoursome and I manage to finish the lot. My companion has a more modest 200 grams of less modest fillet (£16). (The standard sizes go up to 400 grams, but the menu helpfully says that "all steaks can be served in larger sizes". Whole cow anyone?). The chips come in both thick and thin varieties (£2.25) and there are also three other sorts of potatoes on offer. At these prices though, you might expect that sort of thing to be included, rather than to have to pay £5.75 extra for some grilled veggies. The sauces, of course, are also extra, and I am a bit disappointed with the blue cheese one (£2.00) which tastes a bit artificial and is not a patch on the dolcelatte one in Venezia.
Another disappointment is the cheese course -- £6.75 gets you a wooden board with three slivers of Argentinian cheese and some quince jelly. The one a bit like manchengo is quite nice but the other two are pretty unpleasant and for perhaps the first time ever I don't finish. (Don't worry, I didn't break my January cheese fast, I've just been very slow about writing up meals eaten as far back as December).
For two steaks, a cheese, a desert and a couple of glasses of wine each (at almost £6a glass for the cheapest on offer!) the bill tips well over the £100 mark. I have to agree that it's rip off territory. But then I wasn't paying. The service was fine and the company was good. I liked the steak and the cow seats and the cheese bread they served before the meal. So I'd go back -- as long as it's another business lunch.
Gaucho Grill, 29 Westferry Circus, Canary Riverside E14 8RR; Tel. 020 7987 9494; Tube: Canary Wharf; www.gauchorestaurants.co.uk

Fox & Anchor

2008-01-30T13:45:00.000Z

I am prone to bouts of serious unobservedness. So by the time I heard that the old Smithfield market pub, the Fox and Anchor, had been revamped by the guys from the near-by Malmaison the place had already been open for a couple of months. Still, in this case it was defintiely a case of better late than never. The spruce up helps show off the original decor to great effect -- the domineering old dark wood counter, the decorative glass pannels, the little nooks and crannies. They now offer rooms above the pub, but have kept up the tradition of breakfasts from 7 am. There's a changing selection of real ales on tap (around £3), which are served in pewter tankards (though in reality this is slightly less cool, as there's a gentle taste of metal and you can't easily see how much head there is on your pint). The menu is short, starring a tempting array of British classics, and there are specials on the blackboard.

Food-wise the standout was the beef and oyster pie (£10.95) - melt-in-the-mouth chunks of slow cooked meat in a rich, plentiful gravy, topped with a crisp duvet of puff pastry and served (I am guessing this is some kind of bizarre English tradition) with a couple of oysters. The meat, apparently comes from Ginger Pig (lauded by everyone from mutton-loving Prince Charles to Jay Rayner), and the thick chips are fried in goose fat and come in funky little cones. The steak tartare looked really cool, served on wooden boards and topped with an orange yolk. I thought the seasoning was perfect, but the husband deemed it not hot enough (luckily they provided Tabasco as a remedy). The juices from the real, non-dried wild mushrooms had beautifully soaked through into the accompanying toast (£4.95).
There are a few quibbles, of course. The bread is a bit of a disappointment, the steak with a duck egg from the specials board was very lacklustre, the TV screens are an unnecessary distraction (though bonus points for showing a black and white, silent farce!) and being within spitting distance of the city the place is to full of suits to feel like a real local...
But we went back for a second visit within a week of our first one, so I think it's fair to say we are smitten!
The Fox and Anchor, 115 Charterhouse St, EC1M 6AA; Tel. 020 72501300; Tube: Farringdon or Barbican; www.foxandanchor.co.uk

Kwan Thai

2008-01-29T09:55:00.001Z

Looks-wise, Kwan-Thai screams "1980s Chinese restaurant" to me. There's green table cloths, waitresses in traditional costumes, an overwhelmingly long (though admitedly not leather-bound) menu and a general air of OTT-ness. But don't let that put you off -- you can always ignore the decor and enjoy the great views acrsoss the river towards the city of London and the Gherkin. Despite the lengthy menu, the starters selection was a bit limited and a bit bland -- three people of our four-strong party ended up ordering the crisp spring rolls (£4.50). They were nice if unspectacular, and I am tempted to deck some brownie points for the fact that the waitress refused to let me have a starter-sized portion of the som tum instead (a salad of young papaya falvoured with garlic, chilli and lemon juice and highly recommended by a Thai-connoseeur friend). Still, things picked up decidedly with the mains, where a huge selection tempted me away from my usual and much-loved choice of pad thai (here priced at a stepped-than-usual £8.95). Instead, I had the plah goong (£14.95), a pile of juicy prawns, noodles and salad, packed with fresh flavours and lethal chilies. The portion sizes were huge, and no one managed to finish their main course. This being a work lunch, we stuck to mineral water, though the wine list does feature a selection of Thai bottles (£13.95).
To be honest, I prefer the more casual vibe (not to meniton prices) of the Southeast Asian cafes scattered all over London. But for a work lunch, Kwan Thai isn't a bad option.
Kwan Thai, The Riverfront, Hays Galleria, London Bridge, SE1 2HD; Tel. 0207 403 7373; Tube: London Bridge; www.kwanthairestaurant.co.uk

Oops...

2008-01-18T14:52:00.000Z

We'd meant to go for a pre-theatre dinner to Loch Fyne, but to my amazement it was fully booked on a Wednesday. So we crossed the road, rejected a touristy-looking Italian (as I've given up cheese for the month) and ended up here. Much has already been said of the name, so as my punning skills are hardly Olympic standard I think I'll just concentrate on the food. There are tapas, cold meat cuts, a large selection of Spanish cheese (d'oh), a few salads and paellas for those who are not keen on the whole sharing thing. The wine list rather alarmingly lists the numbers of a couple of dishes next to the wine they think goes with them. I say alarmingly because I couldn't possibly justify ordering a different bottle of wine for each couple of tapas plates. Luckily our bottle of Artesano (£17.40) semed to go with the whole lot, so we forgave them for not offering a white rioja.
Tapas-wise, I'll start with the good stuff. Chorizo (£4.95) packed a good punch of flavour, even if the portion seemed a bit stingy. The pimentos del padron (£4.75) heralded a large plate piled high with hot, cute little green peppers ("I could eat a whole plate of these," said the husband, and tried his best to.) The salad of tomatoes, onions and black olives had clean, fresh flavours to slice through the heavy food. In the pulpo a la gallega (£9.75), the octopus was tender and juicy, served in a generous (OK may be not so generous considering the price tag) pile on top of some potatoes. Sausages
Sitting firmly in the "average" league were the patatas bravas (£4.25) and tortilla (£4.50), though the former could have been more crispy. The croq de queso (£4.75) -- deep fried blue cheese balls cheese balls -- were not great and a bit synthetic tasting. (Hey come one, I can still taste other people cheese dishes in the name of accurate reviewing, right?). The two razor clams (navajas fritas £6.25) were quite unnecessarily deep-fried, and thus greasy and a bit rubbery.
They weren't nearly as bad as the stuffed muscles(tigres, £4.50). The mussel shells had been emptied, filled up with what claimed to be mussel mousse but tasted of creamy horribleness with a vague sea aura, covered with bread crumbs and then grilled. The result was quite revolting, and the overwhelming question was "why?".
Serves us right for ordering them though I suppose. The same couldn't be said for the pan con tomate (£2.50), which for me was the biggest disappointment. In Catalona we had lived off large slices of slightly toasted bread, which you then scratch with a raw garlic clove, then rub on raw tomato and finally sprinkle with olive oil. Oops' take though had transferred the dish into a tomato toastie with very little trace of garlic.
Of course the trouble with ending your review on the bad things is that it leaves a rather negative impression. Personally, I would not go out of my way to return, but the meal wasn't bad overall and with careful ordering this place makes a decent stand by for pre-theatre nosh.
Oops... Restaurante & Vinateria, 31 Catherine Street, Covent Garden, WC2B 5JS; Tel. 0207 836 3609; Tube: Covent Garden

Dover Street - not really up my street

2008-01-16T10:07:00.000Z

I am actually feeling quite benevolent towards Dover Street because despite all the pitfalls (or perhaps because of - it can be fun to slag things off sometimes!) we had a brilliant evening. And although much of the wine list is eye-watering, there is some quite nice vin de pays for £14.95 on page 11, and they did refill our jug of tap water without asking.
But this is a restaurant review, so I can't really overlook the extortionate prices or the worse-than-mediocre food. Occupying a basement on the eponymous swish Mayfair street, this place has been catering to the moneyed dinner jazz crowd for nigh on 30 years, and you wonder whether much has changed in the period. The decor features white walls, white table cloths, discreet candle light and black and white signed photos of jazz stars. Bizarrely it's designed in such a way that most tables have no view at all of the small stage -- perhaps in a bid to entice everyone onto the tiny dance floor. It emerged after we'd ordered that there was only one band on that evening, which meant the music -- the venue's chief attraction -- would only start in another two hours, at 10.30 pm. When it did start, it was pleasant enough jazz standards but sadly lacking in any wow factor.

The menu starts with £5.95 for the "potage du jour" and goes up to £28.95 for the dover sole. With prices like these I feel you might as well order something with more expensive ingredients as it represents comparatively better value-for-money. My carpaccio of beef comes in six thin, red petals. I love the pepperiness of the pile of rocket on top, but alas it rather overpowers the fairly bland meat. It's OK, but it costs £9.50 and it's not a patch on the carpaccio feast that can be had in Cafe de l'industrie in Paris (the link is to an old food site I did back when we used to live in Paris...ah the good old days!).

The husband opts for the "scallops with the embeurree of leek and celery" (£10.95). What he gets is an elongated white dish with three scallops swimming in a white sauce which tasted quite strongly of... vanilla. It sure as hell didn't go with the scallops, and I thought it was pretty vile, but he claimed it went OK with the bread as a weird kind of mid-dinner sweet course. Following on in the expensive ingredients vein, I had the £21.95 foie-gras-topped fillet steak Rossini, served with "pomme fondante" which turned out to be a rounder, posher version of potato croquettes. It smelt temptingly of truffle, though I couldn't spot any of the advertised truffle shavings. I've only sampled this dish once before, in an Italian restaurant in Carlisle, and I have to say it was much nicer there. The husband's "roast best end of lamb" (£17.95) looked a lot better than it tasted.
The last kick in the teeth came with the bill which added a £2.50 a head cover charge (for a couple of bread rolls) to the 12.5 percent service charge. I queried the cover charge, saying I had not seen it mentioned on the menu. The waitress came back and showed me where it was - in small black print, on the bit of the menu which was shaded black by the musical leitmotif. Oh, how did I manage not to spot it?! Still, sometimes they do deals which makes the food cheaper and sometimes they do have truly amazing acts. And as I said at the start we still had
a good night. So while I am not awaiting a return visit with anticipation, I haven't entirely ruled it out as a possibility. Not that they probably care too much - the place was full on our week-night visit, suggesting there's no shortage of moneyed punters who like their grub expensive and aren't too bothered about the taste factor.
Dover Street Restaurant and Jazz Bar, 8-10 Dover Street, Mayfair, W1S 4LQ; Tel: 020 7491 7509; Tube: Green Park; www.doverst.co.uk

Electricity Showrooms

2008-01-11T17:10:00.000Z

You have to love any pub entered through a rotating wooden door topped with an old fair ground horse. The Regency ceiling is painted red and some of the flowers have had their centres replaced by twinkling light bulbs. There's a billiards table at the back (more Brownie points) and ahip in a bottle behind the bar.
Throw in big windows, an ad-hoc collection of wooden tables, a bewildering selection of spirits behind the centre-piece bar, and chairs and a selection of old prints on the wall (including a depiction of the Faringdon fight from the National Police Gazette, in which all the audience looks back at you rather than at the fight to show all the celebrities present).
The overall look is a cross between a fair ground and a gin palace. So lets face it I would have loved the place regardless.

But luckily I didn't have to.
They served well-kept ale in glass tankards and offered a short menu of modern comfort foods. Sorry, but I wasn't feeling brave enough to try the one odd ball dish -- the lamb and quince soup. Instead I had the steak and chorizo pie (8.50), a nice flavoursome pile of meat with lots of juicy gravy to soak through the pasty and penetrate the accompanying mound of creamy but uninspired mash.
The husband's fish fingers (7.50) were Jamie Oliver style - slightly odd shaped, home-made looking and good enough to cure my age-old hatred of the things based on the bright orange stuff that sells for 99p in the frozen food section. The accompanying chips were even better - home-made, with skins on, crunchy and treading the perfect middle ground between skinny and jenga-sized. Give me some aioli and I would have been happy to make a meal of the chips alone. Instead we were served a pot of tartare sauce, which I thought was too heavy on the capers, but the husband absolutely loved.
There's a lot of good places clustered around Hoxton Square, but this one is well worth adding to the visiting list. Oh and according to their website they have music etc on at the basement where they have a 1980's 'Pans People' light-up dance-floor. I have no idea what that is but it sounds very cool!
Electricity Showrooms, 39a Hoxton Square, N1 6NN; Tel: 020 7739 3939; www.electricityshowrooms.co.uk

A taster...

2008-01-07T15:11:00.000Z

I seem to be getting hopelessly behind on my reviews, so will try and motivate myself with a public list of places I've yet to write about.

Dion - Skyscraper-high prices but great steak sandwiches in a Canary Wharf wine bar;
Dover Street - Dinner jazz at Mayfair prices;
Electricity Showrooms - Fairground glamour and comfort food in trendy Hoxton;
Fox & Anchor - My new favourite pub in Clerkenwell;
Gaucho Grill - Steaks;
Kolossi Grill - Cypriotic charm on Exmouth market (shame about the food though);
Kwan Thai - Great views for expense account city folks;
Oops - Decent tapas in theatre land (must try to resist the temptation of making silly puns based on the name);
Rooburoo - Indian goes trendy in Islington;
Searcy's - 1980's decor and fabulous view in the Barbican;
Tate Britain Restaurant - Good food, interesting wine list and an amazing mural...

Phew! No wonder those jeans are starting to feel a bit tight....

1802

2008-01-04T15:01:00.000Z

Happy new year - may 2008 bring you (and me!) lots of delectable eating experiences.
I haven't started badly so far, checking out 1802 after reading a rave review on another blog. It's concealed among the much-of-a-muchness chain bars on the waterfront at West India Quay - an area with ample outdoor seating which comes on to its own on balmy summer's evening but can seem a bit drab in cold January. It's also the restaurant of the Museum of Docklands which I have yet to get round to visiting. But it's actually much more promising than those descriptions imply – which is perhaps less surprising when you realise it’s run by Searcy’s who generally do a pretty good job.
The interior makes more of the old docks building than any of its neighbours (judged the husband), with exposed indoor brickwork, metal piping, gentle candle light and lots of light streaming in from the floor to ceiling windows. There are some comfy-looking brown leather sofas for more casual drinks or snacks to one side. Otherwise there are black leather chairs and wooden tables. The menu is quite short, in the traditional gastro pub vein. At lunchtime there are also three options of mains and a drink for £10 for those in a hurry/on a budget. On our visit these included a steak and ale pie and a lamb burger, but in our typical fashion we fancied something else and ended up spending more money.

I had the cesar salad for £9.50, choosing hot smoked salmon as my protein over the also-on-offer chicken and crayfish. The combination actually worked really well, and the salmon wasn't overpowered by the dressing or the anchovies. (Apologies - I was hungry so dug in before I remembered to take a photo. The plate looked much prettier when it was first served.) If I could change one thing, I might have gone with more lettuce and a bit less of the flavoursome stuff for a better balance, but then you can't really complain when you get more of the expensive ingredients and less of the cheap ones. The husband's sausage and mash was good, with two stumpy bangers for £11.00. There's also a good beer list, including both dark and white Erdinger wheat beer (£4.20). It’s not cheap -- but then this is the land of moneyed suit-wearing bankers – and they do get minus points for adding on a 12.5 percent service charge to the bill and then getting the credit card machine to solicit a second tip.
But overall I'm chuffed to have discovered this place, and am just hoping that they change the menu often enough for lots of return visits.
1802, Museum in Docklands No. 1 Warehouse, West India Quay, Canary Wharf, E14 4AL; Tube: Canary Wharf

Gourmet Burger Kitchen - pricey patties

2007-12-28T15:20:00.000Z

The eating options in Canary Wharf are (surprisingly) pretty limited, so I was perhaps unduly excited by the opening of the Gourmet Burger Kitchen. (Though judging by the length of the lunchtime queues in the week before Christmas, I wasn't the only one.) It occupies a cave-like, window-less space under Wagamama's in Jubilee Place, the posher of the two shopping malls. The dark-wood tables and black-cad waiters help keep out any notion of daylight, while giving the venue a brisk, canteen-style aura. You order at the bar, which I guess is handy for bill-splitting. The A3-sized laminated menu focuses heavily on burgers of every possible incarnation (though whether a portabello mushroom or a piece of chorizo really counts as a burger is debatable), but there are also some salads if you are feeling healthy. I went for the bog-standard cheese burger (£6.75). The Aberdeen angus patty was juicy and flavoursome and the default "medium" cooking left it with a pleasant pink hue in the middle. The bun also featured ketchup, lettuce, tomato and raw onions. I am not sure what kind of cheese it was, but it was nice and definitely not of the luminous orange American variety. Chips, however, were a whopping £2.55 extra, plus another £1.45 for a small pot of sauce such as garlic mayo or sour cream. They were thick-cut, and not sufficiently crispy for my liking. The GBK chain was founded by a couple of kiwis, so New Zealand beers feature on the menu (I had a bottle of the rather pleasant Macs Gold ale for £3.05) and the more wacky section of the burgers menu includes a "kiwi". This concoction combines the humble beef patty with a fried egg, pineapple and..... wait for it.... beetroot. To my utter amazement, my colleague wolfed down the whole lot, shovelling away with a knife and fork as the "kiwi" was too tall to bite into. He did admit though that the beetroot may have been unnecessary... The service was very quick (especially given that most tables were occupied) and pretty cheerful. And despite the beetroot, they also do pretty decent offerings catering to those of who stick to the "if it ain't broke don't fix it" philosophy on burgers. They also do takeaway, though at these prices I'd say it's far too steep for a regular lunchtime jaunt. If I had the choice, I'd prefer a nice pub which does good burgers but also a wider repertoire of other dishes, and feels less canteen-like. But as I happen to work in the area and have yet to find such a venue, I dare say I'll be back.

Gourmet Burger Kitchen, Unit 24 Jubilee Place, Canary Wharf, E14 5NY; Tel. 0207 719 6408; Tube: Canary Wharf; www.gbkinfo.com

Smiths of Smithfield - SOS brunch

2007-12-27T12:29:00.000Z

During the week, I have to get up far too early to enjoy a leisurely breakfast and try to stay very healthy on an early-morning ration of fruit and yoghurt. So come the weekend, I am always a big fan of something more complicated and brunch-like. For this, Smiths of Smithfields is perfect. The ground floor sweeps away its thumping, trendy bar persona of the previous evening and transforms into a buzzing cafe-style haven for those nursing morning-after hangovers. It's always packed and they don't take bookings, so brunch usually starts with a drink and a browse through the weekend papers on the squashy brown leather sofas in the corner, until a table is ready. The drinks include fresh orange juice (£2.20), teas and coffees (£1.50+), a selection of "morning after" tipples including shandy (?) and a damn good bloody Mary (£5.50), as well as grown up (ie alcoholic) milkshakes (£6.50 for an “apple crumble”). Served in giant metal beakers, these are a meal (or more accurately a desert) in themselves.
I like the brunch food menu for its variety - you can have anything from a fry up (in various permutations) to a BLT to a proper main course like sausage and mash. (Sensibly though, unlike the near-by 24-hour caff Tinseltown, they don't offer Thai green curry - hang offer food that ain't, as my husband once discovered the hard way.) On the last two visits I've had the eggs benedict with smoked salmon (£8.50), served on a halved muffin and smeared in creamy hollandaise. Their macaroni cheese with haddock (£6.50) isn't bad, but not cheesy enough. The club sandwich is huge, and the BLTs (£6.50) are also pretty good. Just don't try to economise with something like egg on toast (£2.50) - you will feel very jealous when everyone else gets their food.
Other than always being very busy, the other (no doubt related) drawback is the service, which can be a bit slow and a bit inattentive, especially if you order extra drinks). But for me the food and the buzzing atmosphere tip the balance firmly in SOS's favour. Plus Santa(s) and his(their) reindeer brunch there. (Oh, ok, it was probably just real people we saw lining their stomachs ahead of Santacon, but it was still cool.)

Smiths of Smithfield, 67-77 Charterhouse Street, EC1M 6HJ; Tel. 0207 251 7950; Tube: Barbican or Farringdon; www.smithsofsmithfield.co.uk

St John, N19 - best ailoi in Archway

2007-12-24T09:48:00.000Z

We are very lucky to live within about a 15minute walk of literally dozens of great restaurants. The downside though is that it's all too easy not to discover what delights (or otherwise!) lie further afield. So the invitation to deepest, darkest Archway for some live music sounded like the beginning of adventure. We stumbled upon a corner of Ireland in the middle of North London. In the Lion pub, a man was belting out melancholy songs and strumming his guitar while old, weather-worn men and women nodded along, sipped their pints of Guinness and got lost in reveries of days gone by. The slightly younger customers were more cheerful, stomping out an energetic jig in the corner. Equally character-full Irish folk looked on from slightly caricaturised, faded paintings on the dark walls. The penalty you pay for living in central London is that you'll never get a gem like this as your local. (And while it may not offer any interesting beers, the other advantage of not being in central London is that it's cheap - I paid £11 for three pints and a large wine.)
As the food on offer at the Lion didn't seem to stretch beyond mini cheddars and bacon flavoured fries, we were reluctantly forced to leave in search of sustenance. With unusual foresight, I had looked the area up in my Harden's guide and had discovered that there was a well-reputed gastro joint just round the corner called St. John. Here too the drinks de jour were whiskey and Guinness, although there were also a couple of real ales on tap and the crowd was much younger. From the chalkboard menu, the leg of lamb came with all the trimmings you would expect in a generous roast, as well as a highly-rated onion sauce. The roast half of chicken with a peppercorn jus was also amply sized and beautifully juicy. I opted for the mussels with chorizo and onions, the salty sausage contrasting well with the tender crustaceans. The highlight of the meal though was the aioli. It was proffered when I asked for some mayo to go with the delightfully crispy home-made chips. It packed a serious punch of garlic and tasted freshly made. We got through two pots. It was heaven, and worth the trek to Archway in its own right.

St John, 91 Junction Rd, N19 5QU; Tel. 020 7272 1587. The Lion public house (also known as Sweeneys), 1 Junction Road N19 5QT. Tube (for both): Archway

St Moritz - gloriously cheesy

2007-12-20T15:06:00.000Z

As someone who once managed to put on half a stone on a four-day "skiing" break in the French Alps, I have to admit to impartiality - I love fondue. And as St Moritz is the only place I know of in central London that serve fondue, I am also rather fond of St Moritz. It's located in the heart of Soho, in a small, old half-timbered house done up to look like a Swiss chalet. There's one of those long horn things on the wall, and framed postcards advertising Swiss cheese. The waitresses are dressed in Swiss national costume and the plates have pictures of cute little cows chewing on oversized daisies. Sure, it's kitsch, and it's not going to win any contemporary style awards. But to my mind, cosy and comfortable often beats stylish.
The menu includes raclette as a starter, and other Swiss specialities such as rosti. For me though, it had to be fondue. The selection includes a meat one, and a Chinese one (I guess a version of the fiery Sizchuanese hotpot), but we went for the "forestiere" - a heaven-made combination of mushrooms and cheese. I was very pleasantly surprised by the mushrooms - there lots of them, and of the proper wild, non-dried variety. The dish smelled of autumn. It came with a basket of bread, and we order a side of new potatoes for dipping as well (£3.50). If you want to pretend that you are being healthy you can also dip in seasonal vegetables. The fondue was huge and we struggled to finish it (we did of course, what kind of a cheese fiend would I be otherwise!). The wine menu is interesting. They have a large selection of whites, reds, roses and bubbles -- but they are all Swiss, as is the only beer on offer. We opted for Merlot rose from the Ticino canton (£20.95), which proves refreshingly crisp and dry for a rose, and nicely cuts through the richness of the cheese. Licking the last bits of cheese off my fork, I wished I could eat fondue every day. But luckily for Britain's obesity statistics I don't -- yet.
St Moritz, 161 Wardour Street, Soho, W1V 3TA; Tel: 020 7734 3324; Tube: Tottenham Court Road; www.stmoritz-restaurant.co.uk

Most Cafe Bar - most for beer, least for food?

2007-12-19T16:43:00.000Z

We had come to the Christmas fair by Tower Bridge in search of festive cheer, German sausages and mulled wine. But – faced with an ice-cold Tuesday evening – the stalls had closed earlier than advertised and of our three quests we were only able to complete the one for mulled wine (which did come in very cute, boot-shaped cups).
Forced to look for sustenance elsewhere and too cold to wonder around aimlessly gazing in restaurant windows, we tumbled into the nearest eaterie. This turned out to be the Most Cafe Bar underneath the bridge. It was a tiny place, occupied by a large beer bar and a few tables poked around the sides. I say beer bar as that's clearly the speciality – the menu offers around 30 different varieties, spanning from an English stout to a chili beer from Arizona. Understandably, we had to try the latter. It was a normal enough looking bottle of lager, with an assuming little green chili floating inside. Taste-wise, the chili had clearly won the battle over the lager hands down – the drink tasted like some kind of accompaniment to nachos or fajitas. It wasn't overly spicy, but it definitely tasted like it should be “green”. (Does anyone else ever think foods taste of a particular colour?). Incidentally, it also didn't taste very nice and we left most of the bottle. We also sampled a cherry beer from the ever-wonderful Sam Smiths brewery, which reminded me of boiled cherry-flavoured sweets (in a good way). In comparison, my glass of house red seemed pretty dull in comparison – a fact I was secretly glad of.
The menu features some snacks (eg mezze platter, nachos), as well as robust-sounding mains from mussles to steaks. Tempted by the blue-cheese mash, I asked for a rare rib eye (11.95). The mash was indeed pretty good, as were the glazed carrots. But the steak was well done and fatty. My friend went for the scallops with the cauliflower pure (12.95) from the short specials list. She said it was nice but rather stingy portion-wise. The biggest let-down though were the olives we'd ordered to munch on before the food arrived. Despite two reminders they were served after the main courses. A small square bowl of green and black olives (nice, but looking and tasting like they'd come from a jar), an identical bowl of indifferent olive oil with a squirt of balsamic vinegar, and a third with some slices of a baguette. Nothing short of extortion at 4.50. I was tempted to send it back, but my friend needed the bread to supplement her main course.
It was a nice evening, and I might be tempted to come back and try more beers, but next time I'll eat elsewhere.
Most Cafe Bar; Horrace Jones Vault, 206-208 Tower Bridge Road, SE1 2UP; Tel. 020 74036030; Tube: Tower Hill or London Bridge; www.mostcafebar.co.uk

PS After some googling, I discover that in fact the cafe is owned by a Russian lady, with the cafe's name intended as a pun since "most" is also the Russian word for "bridge". If that's the case, then it's a great shame that the only Russian beer on offer is the now readily available Baltika lager.

Bedales - rest for the wicked

2007-12-17T17:32:00.000Z

When you are fearlessly braving the pre-Christmas weekend shopping crush to buy gifts for your nearest and dearest, you deserve a treat. For me, such a treat came in the very welcome shape of a cosy wine bar in the new bit of Spitalfields market. The walls are lined with bottles and you can choose to crack any one of them open there and then, at the narrow table in the middle of the shop for a modest corkage of £8. (In the fully-booked St John's Bread and Wine round the corner, blackboards seemed to suggest mark ups in the £20-30 range.) We decided to take it easy though (too many Christmas parties), and opted for wines by the glass (from about £5). The food menu is short and simple, ranging from meat and cheese platters, to pates and warming bowls of soup of the day.
We ordered at the bar-cum-shop-counter, opting for a large "mixed plank" of cheese and charcuterie. It arrived on a wooden board, featuring about 4 choices from each food group and accompanied by a large basket of fresh-tasting bread from the aforementioned St John. The hard, French-style salami was the most popular, while the proscuitto went very well with the goat's cheese. About the only miss to my mind was the chorizo of the large, thin slices variety -- I far prefer it served in small, thick, warmed up chunks in a red wine sauce. There were also olives and a pot of rich -- almost too rich -- tapenade. With tip, we were stuffed for under £30 for two, and left feeling rejuvenated enough to resume the shopping. We might well return in the evening (they are open until 9-9.30 pm in the week), with some wine-knowledgeable friends, to while away a couple of hours and a couple of bottles in a convivial atmosphere.

Bedales, 12 Market Street (off of Brushfield Street), Spitalfields, E1 6DT; Tel: 020 7375 1926; Tube: Liverpool Street; www.bedalestreet.com

The Porterhouse - come for the porter not the food

2007-12-11T15:14:00.000Z

The Porterhouse is a huge multi-leveled labyrinth of a pub, linked together with exposed copper piping. Despite its size it is frequently packed to the rafters, and so must be doing something right. The beer for starters. The place has its own micro-brewery producing three stouts, three ales and three lagers. Plus they have a huge beer menu, including beers from as far afield as Palestine and Tahiti. In the line of duty we sampled, among others, a banana bread beer from Jamaica (very banana-y, quite nice, but not sure I could manage more than a glass), a Crocodile beer from Sweden (winner of best beer award....17 years ago!) and a "sexy" beer featuring a bikini-clad lady on the bottle (scratch and the bikini disappears, so the taste of the larger is rather beside the point!). The food menu features the kind of thing you need to soak up the beer - pizzas, pies, burgers, snacky platters - with most mains around the £7-9 mark. My favourite by far was the "frying pan". It literally came served in a cute iron frying pan (atop a plate), crammed full of potatoes, eggs, onions, chorizo and other stuff and it was very yummy. The steak sandwich on the other hand was a bit of a disappointment -- the granary bread and the mayo overpowered the miserly portion of well-done steak and I couldn't trace the parmesan advertised on the menu. The accompanying chips were thick cut and nice enough, though they lose points for serving the mayo in those little Heinz sachets. The burgers were also OK, but with no great "wow" factor. So overall I'd say this is a place to come for the beer and the atmosphere (and the music - they have Irish folk sessions on Sunday afternoons), but the food is good enough to mean you don't have to leave if you get a bit peckish.
The Porterhouse, 21-22 Maiden Lane, Covent Garden, WC2 E7NA; Tel. 0207 379 7917; Tube: Covent Garden or Charing Cross; www.porterhousebrewco.com

The Angelic - pre-shopping lunch haven

2007-12-06T10:27:00.001Z

Somehow pushing your way around an overcrowded Sainsbury is so much more bearable if it is preceded by a nice pub lunch. (I've learned to go easy on the pre-shopping beer though, as then the contents of the supermarket trolley have a danger of veering off in to the impractical/expensive territory.) For such weekend lunches, The Angelic comes into its own. Big windows keep the white-walled room bright even in a drizzly December. There are rustic-looking wooden tables and brown leather sofas, as well as a randomly stocked book case if all the weekend papers have been nabbed by the time you arrive. On our last visit they were putting up a Christmas tree, a huge one thanks to the tall ceilings. There's a good selection of beers -- from Russian Baltika to well-kept real ales -- as well as a menu of freshly made juices and smoothies for anyone on a detox. The prices aren't cheap, but this is upmarket Islington after all. They do weekly specials for Sunday lunch (two roasts, and something veggie), but unlike a lot of places they also offer the normal menu. Before the mains, we are served a wooden board with soft white bread and dinky bowls of olive oil, balsamic vinegar, coarse sea salt and pepper. It takes the edge of the hunger nicely and mains aren't far behind. The roast pumpkin, leek and Stilton strudel is very nice, and helps convince that pumpkin is an under-rated vegetable. (I re-discovered it when in a bid not to be wasteful I fried up the Halloween pumpkin covered in flour, with apples, cream and cheese.) I was a bit apprehensive about the accompanying bubble and squeak rosti, remembering a pile of non-descript tasteless lumpy mash-type stuff that used to be served with fry-ups in Bristol's York Cafe. This version though was crisp, nicely and seasoned and delicious enough to inspire me to try my own version at home. The duck, orange and apricot sausage (£10.50) tasted strongly of the ingredients, which so many posh flavoured sausages don't seem to manage. It was served with puy lentils -- one of my favourite accompaniments -- and sautéed leeks and red currant gravy. We could have lingered there all afternoon (they have board games too), but sadly Sainsbury's was calling...
The Angelic, 57 Liverpool Road , Islington, N1 0RJ; Tel: 020 7278 8433; Tube: Angel; www.theangelic.co.uk.
PS I now have a shiny new mobile phone with apparently a decent camera, so will endeavour to sneakily capture my food in the future in a bid to make this blog a bit more colourful.

The Fat Duck

2007-12-04T17:35:00.001Z

It's not really the kind of place that needs a jokey headline, or much of an introduction. But it does make a rather worthy subject for my 100th post (yay!).

We planned the trip for months in advance, the booking line on speed dial for The Day Three Months before THE Day (they take bookings up to three months in advance), credit cards at the ready.

A rather unglamorous train trip from Paddington to Maidenhead, followed by a £5 taxi ride and we were standing on a narrow pavement outside an unassuming white washed, centuries old house. Inside, it was all white walls and tablecloths, sparkling glasses and dark wooden beams. The clientele was a mix of those for whom this was clearly a special occasion and those who looked they could afford to become regulars. There was a slight awe in the air, but it wasn't a stuffy, must-wear-jacket-and-tie kind of place.

We decided to go the whole hog -- aperitifs of champagne (we didn't like to ask how much, but the bill shows up about £17 a glass), the tasting menu (£115) and the accompanying wine selection (£90). I wanted to ask for tap water, but was over-ruled, so we had the £3.50 bottled stuff instead. All in all, it added up to about £250 a head. But was it worth it?...

At the end of the meal you each get an envelope of posh, strokeable paper with a Fat Duck seal, a copy of the menu concealed inside. So even though I've put off writing the review for months -- overwhelmed by the task -- I can tell you exactly what we had.

It started with nitro-green tea and lime mousse . The waitress produced a little blob, not dissimilar in appearance to hair mousse, out of an old-fashioned looking metal dispenser. She then zapped it with liquid nitrogen and told us to put the whole thing in the mouth in one go. On the tongue, it had a crunchy, frozen shell and then melted into lemony, liquidy refreshness.

A single oyster was served in its shell with passion fruit jelly and lavender , the textures matching nicely to create a slightly sweet, slithery, but not unpleasant sensation.

The pommery grain mustard ice cream was served a small, creamy coloured blob in a large white bowl, with the red cabbage gazpazcho added a little later in keeping with the theatricality of the place.

The parade of appetisers also featured jelly of quail, langoustine cream and parfait of foie gras before culminating in a three-way experience of the forest. A wooden tray of oak moss was placed on the table and "watered" with dry ice to produce clouds of foresty, mossy mist. We inhaled this while treating our taste buds to a tiny, earthy square of truffle toast and a sliver of moss jelly served in a little plastic box and eaten by letting it dissolve on your tongue. All that was accompanied by a German white, 2005 Iphofer Kronsberg Silvaner Spatlese Trocken (though I don't remember it tasting of celeriac!)

But even though the portions are tiny, this is certainly not a place you leave huyngry. Firstly, the dishes are numerous (including the appetisers, we counted 18!) and secondly throughout the meal, you can choose from a tasty bread basket selection.

Next came one of the Fat Duck's signature dishes, snail porridge. I'm not sure what I was expecting, but of all the dishes, this was the one that disappointed me most. It actually consisted of some normal-tasting porridge (though, to be fair it an unnatural shade of green), topped with normal, de-shelled snails and decorated with Joselito ham and shaved fennel and washed down with a glass of red, the 2004 Vin de Pays des Cote Catalanes, Le Soula, G. Gauby, Roussilon.

Then, to show that even molecular gastronomes aren't averse to using top-end ingredients, came the luxuriously creamy roast foie gras, served on plate decorated with streaks of cherry and chamomile sauces and tiny cubes of almond fluid gel. I was unconvinced by the jelly, though the Husband (generally a bigger fan of nursery food!) complemented it for the strong flavour. The 2003 Vinoptima Gewurtzraminder Reserve from Gisborne in New Zealand was a surprisingly nice accompaniment, considering that I don't like sweet wines.

Next another much-written-about dish. The "Sound of the sea" came accompanied by a tiny little ipod, hidden in a conch shell and programmed with swooshy sea sounds. The dish itself looked like a pebbly beach, topped with some foam and some things that may have been sea weed or sea creatures, and matched with a pungent, maritime smell. While I was not convinced by the flavours, you certainly couldn't fault it as a recreation of the sea for all the senses. It was served with Rashiku Junmai sake, which apparently has similar flavour characteristics to a Sauvignon blanc.

Salmon poached with liquorice featured a delicately flavoured (cooked sous vide?) piece of salmon, encased in sticky, sickly brown coating of (admittedly relatively mild flavoured) liquorice. It was served with two rather gorgeous spears of asparagus on streaks of vanilla mayonnaise and Manni olive oil , the latter fittingly created as part of a science project! Whether you enjoyed the dish or not I think boiled down to which side of the fence you are with regards to liquorish. The glass was topped up with 2001 Quinta da Falorca Reserva from Dao in Portugal.

Next was the Ballotine of Anjou pigeon with a very bloody black pudding, Chinese pigeon cracker, picking brine and spiced juices and a glass of gutsy 1999 Barolo from Piedmont.

The hot and iced tea was a truly amazing feat of science. The left half the cup of lemony, black, slightly sweet, slightly solidified liquid was hot. And the right half was ice-cold. You could feel the divide on your lips as it slipped down. Another one to file under "how the heck did he do that?!".

Then it was time for some rosy-coloured British nostalgia, a concept which in my mind is always illustrated by idyllic images of the British seaside and those mildly smutty seaside postcards circa 1950s. Mrs Marshall's Margeret cornet was a dinky little ice cream cone accompanied by a little leaflet. From there, we learnt that the rather pretty looking Agnes Bertha Marshall may have invented the edible ice cream cone back in 1886 and who suggested making ice cream using liquid gas more than a century ago.

The Pine-sherbet fountain was just a cute hark back to childhood, not dissimilar to those sugar fixes from the local corner shop of old.

The Mango and Douglas fir puree, Bavarois of lyche and mango, blackcurrant sorbet looked very pretty was ultimately a bit forgettable, but luckily its accompanying beverage was not. The 2003 Icewine from Pelee Island Winery, Ontario was for me the most bizarre thing on the drinks list -- they make wine in Canada?? Icewine, I discover is actually made from grapes that have been frozen while still on the vine, so perhaps it's ideally suited for cold climes. It was sweet, but clean and refreshing tasting, though that could have just been a psychological reaction to the word "ice" in the name.

The Carrot and orange tuile came as an odd-looking crispy lollypop, contrasted with a cube of beetroot jelly.

The Parsnip cereal came in a cute little pale green cereal box with the Fat Duck logo, and looked a bit like cornflakes. It came with parsnip milk.

The Nitro scrambled egg and bacon ice cream, pain perdu and tea jelly was truly amazing. The waitress came up with one of those shaped cardboard egg boxes, full of whole-looking egg shells into which they had cunningly put the egg and bacon ice cream mix. She then cracked the eggs into a shiny copper saucepan and zapped them with the nitrogen into ice cream. It tasted nice too - a luxurious take on breakfast in the middle of a very extravagant lunch. The accompaniment was a sweet, fruity glass of 2004 Jurancon, Uroulat, C. Hours, France.

We just about had room for the Whisky wine gums, violet tartlet before stumbling out into the daylight, about four hours after we first went in! And the verdict? Well worth the money (though probably as a once-in-a-lifetime treat).