Polpetto

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

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

Barrafina

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

Oops...

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