M&S are over visiting as part of the Christmas
festivities, and we’ve decided to go out to Obia,
the smarter of our two fairly new local Italians. We invite K along as well. It
describes itself as “Ristorante, Vinoteca, Bar”, but I think it’s unlikely you’d
go in just for a drink, though there is an area with high stools. There is a garden area too, where you can get
snacks like arancini, but obviously we’re not going there on an early January
evening.
It’s fairly busy when
we get there at 7.30pm, with a couple of larger groups, as well as couples. Our
table is near the main path through the restaurant, but as we are only 5, we
can leave the most affected seat vacant.
The very friendly waiter/maitre d’ comes over and rattles
off some of the specials, all of which sound nice. The menu is anyway pretty
interesting. I order the Soave at £19.50,
though M has a Moretti on draught, and S a lime and soda.
Three of us have the grilled sardines and fennel off the
specials list, while S has buffalo mozzarella. The sardines are very good,
nicely marinated, and filleted.
For mains, between us, we have seabass fillets (specials),
pan-fried cod with borlotti beans, lamb cutlets and I have pork belly; we also
have zucchini fritti, steamed spinach and chips. My pork belly portion is huge, and I’m not
able to finish it, instead taking about half away. It was also a little on the
dry side, making it harder to get through.
Others were very pleased with theirs, all with clean plates.
K orders the sorbet and gelati for dessert, and is offered
the mince pie gelati as one of her three choices. It genuinely tasted of mince
pie – very good. B has the semifreddo, which is covered in gooey toffee sauce and
nuts – lovely.
The service has been very friendly and efficient throughout,
despite it being quite busy. With a second bottle of Soave, the bill comes to
£225 including service, pretty good value we felt. And the whole thing was
rounded off with a complimentary glass of limoncello to send us away feeling
very good about the place.
It’s B’s birthday, so first we
do the cultural bit – Cezanne portraits at the NPG – and then on to lunch.
She’s chosen a simple enough Thai place, actually from the same chain as we
went to in Kingston: Busaba Eathai in
Panton Street.
We finish the exhibition rather
earlier than expected (it’s not that large), and so first repair
The Chandos in St Martin’s Lane.
This Sam Smith’s pub has lots of character, with nice wood-panelled booths, and
was surprisingly quiet for such a central location. And reasonably priced too.
Then off to lunch. It’s pretty quiet in here too – there wasn’t
really a need to book. The tables in the centre of the room are large
(8-seater) sharing ones, but there are some 2’s and 3’s by the windows which is
what we choose.
Service is attentive enough, and
we have some edamame beans with our Viognier (French - £26) while we decide on
the order. To start we have garlic and pepper chicken livers, which are
excellent, and “son-in-law” eggs. These are boiled eggs with a coating and a
little spice – fine, but not as interesting as they sounded.
Main courses are Asian salmon
fillet – a nicely poached slab of fish with a spicy support – and jasmine beef
rib – sturdy but comes away from the bone well. Supported by a “Som Tam” salad
– seriously spicy.
With a couple of other glasses
of wine and service (JUST 10%!) the bill
comes to a little over £100. The way prices go these days in central London
that is probably fair, but at over £100 I start to feel the meal should be
special, and this was only fine.
J&G are over from NZ, so we meet up for lunch with them
and M&G at Mber in Pudding Lane. It
describes itself as “Pan-Asian tapas”.
It’s down in a dark, seductive basement, with enormous metal stanchions.
We have been a couple of times before,
but after wine-tastings, so this is our first time sober!
We’re sat at a high table with stools in the middle of the
restaurant. There are quite a few others in, but there’s no problem with the
acoustics. The wine list shoots up pretty rapidly, but I do find a white Rioja
at £35 which meets with approval – later we also have a Carignan red at £31. The range of food choice is extensive, so with
there being six of us, we decide to go for the set 6-dish lunch with a couple
of add-ons.
First to arrive is the salmon salad – nicely smoked, poached
salmon with cos lettuce and edamame beans.
Next the chorizo and prawn gyoza (ordered extra), which are lovely; and
then the beef glass noodle salad, which was seriously spicy. These are followed
by the satay chicken (vg), soft-shell crab tempura (also vg) and the cha sui
pork doughnuts (nice pork but the doughnut is oddly sweet). Finally the beef rendang curry with rice and
pak choi.
That seems to have defeated most of us, but a couple of
valiant souls move on to dessert. A Pannetone bread and butter pudding meets
with G’s approval; my peanut butter
parfait also gets lots of takers.
In the end we have 4 bottles of the Rioja and 2 of the
Carignan. That takes the bill, with 12.5% service, to over £500 for the 6 of
us. Clearly, more abstemious people could have got away with less! So very good value overall.
Meeting up with S and L, we head to The Escapologist near Seven Dials, as the girls like to start the evening with a
cocktail. We’re there first and are surprised
to find that it is 2-for-1 happy hour, even though it’s a Friday night. The
place is busy, and it takes a while to take the order and bring our drinks, by
which time S has arrived and can order hers. L arrives late, having got the
time wrong, so just shares our drinks. Six cocktails for £35 is pretty good!
Then we’re off to Cinnamon
Bazaar: in Maiden Lane. Last
time we went the food was excellent, but the service shambolic, so we’re
hoping for better this time. The place
is busy and buzzy, but we get help with ordering and our wine (white Rioja at
£38 – the prices do go up quickly) quite quickly, so things are looking up.
For starters we share a crab bonda, watermelon chaat,
dahi bhala chaat (lentil dumplings) and crisp whitebait. We’d had the
crab (with beetroot) before, but today it seemed rather heavy. The watermelon
was both refreshing and spicy. Lentil dumplings were also heavy, but the whitebait
were indeed crisp with a good spicy powdered covering.
Mains are served reasonably promptly despite the full house. We have
Tandoori lamb fillet, pork belly with curried yoghurt, Tandoori king prawns, and
haddock curry. The lamb was tender and the pork interesting, but the king
prawns (though large) were rather ordinary, and the haddock curry not
impressive. We had tried to order rice, but the dishes came with some, so we
just had a garlic naan and a black dhal in support.
We share a couple of desserts – an excellent kulfi on a stick and chocolate
golis, four different flavoured truffles, of which the dark chocolate
with chilli was by far the best.
Service was much better than before: timely, cheerful and helpful
– clearly the A-Team on tonight. With three bottles of wine the bill comes to a
bit over £250 without tip - we left £30. £70 a head is perhaps a bit on the
expensive side (to an extent due to the wine), as this time the food wasn’t
stand out excellent, just good.
