Cork and Bottle

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

Katana

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

Cicada

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.

The Elk in the Woods

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

Camino

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

Medcalf

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

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

Coach and Horses

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

Beach Blanket Babylon

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

Europe's longest most disappointing champagne bar.

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/

Fox & Anchor

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

Electricity Showrooms

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

Smiths of Smithfield - SOS brunch

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

Ye Olde Mitre - hark back to the good olde days

There are so many gastropubs around these days that it's a refreshing change to go somewhere that is resolutely stuck in a pub time warp, selling pickled eggs and brimming tankards of ale to a largely male clientele. And when such a visit involves a trip to Cambridgeshire without leaving central London, so much the better. Ye Olde Mitre is hidden away in an implausibly narrow passageway off Ely Place -- one-time home to the Bishop of Ely and thus ( apparently) part of Cambridgeshire. There are two entrances to the pub, one leading to the tiny front room and the other to the slightly roomier back one, with the bar in the middle. The dark wood panelling on the walls is decorated with pictures of English kings (including Henry VIII looking nothing like Jonathan Rhys Meyers from the latest BBC adaptation) and a notice proclaiming that Santa will be visiting on December 4 (yay!). Our pints of Deuchars (£2.85) are very well kept. It's the kind of place where you get chatting to the landlord and a few of the tables look like regulars. The food on offer is wonderfully simple. We try a cheese and onion toastie for £1.50 -- cut into little triangles and pungent with raw onion. I think the cheese is red Leicester (it's orange coloured), which isn't as good as mature cheddar, but it hits the spot and soaks up the beer and I have to be talked out of ordering another one. There's also sausage rolls, sausages and even giant gherkins (60 pence!) on offer. I am smitten, and have resolved to go back next week for more Deuchars, a gherkin and a mince pie.

Ye Old Mitre, Ely Court, off Ely Place, EC1N 6SJ; Tube: Chancery Lane

Queens Arms - not so bad in the West

The pub is very well hidden, down a cobbled alleyway (sorry a mews) off a residential road lined with those prime, white, Edwardian terraced houses. (Before I really knew London, I always wanted to live in one of those, though I have since realised that they prevail in the West, where as I very much prefer the East side.) It’s also just that bit too far from shopping delights of the Kings Road or high-brown delights of South Kensington museums to avoid being over-run with crowds. There are wooden tables (high and low), wooden chairs. To be honest, I don't really remember the decor -- it didn't really stand out much from the standard modern pub mode. The pints of prawns though were luscious, even if they had run out of gloriously lumpy home-made aioli and had to resort to bog-standard mayonnaise for dips. And they were only £5 a go -- about half the price of those at The Well and firmly knocking on the head the myth of the West being more expensive than the East. The roast chicken and sausages and mash ordered by other people in the group smelled gorgeous and the portions were huge. With the hindsight of the next day's hangover we probably should have followed their example and had more than the prawns too. Which brings me to the great selection of drinks, with several real ales, my beloved Aventinus and the bright-pink strawberry-flavoured Fruli which seems to have cornered the market in beer drinkers who don't actually like the taste of beer. I also really liked the atmosphere -- there were people enjoying a weekend lunch and the papers on their own, girlfriends catching up over a bottle of wine -- it was a proper, leisurely weekend vibe. If I ever do end up in one of those Edwardian houses, having this as a local would go a bit of the way to soothing the departure from East London.

Queens Arms, 30 Queens Gate Mews, SW7 5QL; Tel. 020 7581 7741; Tube: Gloucester Road