It’s Valentine’s Day so of course we take our neighbour out for dinner. We get a taxi over to Warlingham (about 20 mins), though parking is difficult and we have to jump out rapidly. Naturally the place is festooned with red balloons, but we are offered a table where we can easily move them aside.
We’d heard of it some time ago as a place run by a chef who used to work at the Cinnamon Club. K&I next door had been before and liked it too, so we were definitely looking forward to it.
It’s quite busy, so it is hard to track down a specific server, but we get our wine (the house Merlot at £17.95) quickly enough. There are some more interesting/expensive wines on the list, but it’s not unreasonable.
There is a special Valentine’s Day 4-course menu on offer, but we decide to go a la carte, which they are OK with. We get some poppadums (with nice chutneys), then order. K passes on a starter, so we share the chilli squid (deep-fried, with a good hit of chilli) and the yellow fin tuna between the three of us. The tuna comes as slices of seared tuna, along with a few pieces of tuna tartar – the seared tuna is good, but I’m less enamoured with the tartar.
For main course, K goes with the mixed tandoori grill – chicken, lamb, prawn – with a stuffed paratha. She says that is very good. B orders the Goan prawns (or “Gowan” as the menu has it), which are excellent: good prawn flavour, soft but not cotton-wool, and a seriously spicy sauce. I choose “Nihari raan” – lamb shank in yoghurt and spice sauce. This is fine, the sauce is delicious and the meat comes away from the bone easily, but somehow the combination doesn’t really work. We also order rice, dhal and a garlic spinach dish.
We indulge in a couple of desserts. K chooses the gulab jamun, the sticky milk balls dish, and B the pistachio kulfi. Both good.
Service has been very good despite the busy evening. At one point a senior waiter took mock offence when after asking “didn’t I take your order?”, I reply “no, a young man did!”.
The bill presented was £136 – 10% service, 2 bottles of wine and a couple of cokes. It sounded OK, so I didn’t check it until later. They had forgotten to charge us for the poppadums and starters, but had charged us for an extra side dish and coke – on balance we were ahead!
Worth the visit if there are enough of you to justify the taxi fare.
I’ve reviewed this charming French bistro before, and again we are there with S&S. It may be that is not as much on offer as you’d expect, but we end up ordering just two different starters and two different mains between us. S and B love the whole crab starter, which of course takes an age to eat. S and I go for the smoked duck salad – good, not special.
Unusually we have all gone for galettes as mains – B for the gambas, and the rest of us for the fruits de mer. We also have a crème brulee and a crepes suzette for dessert.
£244 for the food plus four bottles of Viognier at £25 and some water. Happy to recommend that.
We’d been looking for a good Chinese centrally so when we hear of this place by Covent Garden we have to give it a try. It’s a tight small space with a long central table and a few others around the side. We get seated at a two-some table in what feels like a cramped place near the bar – nowhere to put coats other than the floor. The place is fairly busy with lively young people so, once we get used to the table, the atmosphere is OK.
It’s tricky to work out what to order from the menu – what is starter or main. Some dishes seem seriously pricey and dim sum are £10 a shot. In the end we go for a selection of starters/dim sum. We choose just 4 to start with.
The “pac man” prawn dumplings are unique – there are four different flavour dumplings plus a “pac man” shaped shrimp/potato fritter. The individual dumplings are excellent, but pac-man himself a little dull. The other dim sum is beef dumplings – spicy and slippery. We also have “Dingley Dell” pork belly – soft and full of flavour; and lamb skewers with chilli and cumin.
To be fair the dishes have been a good size and very tasty. We order another portion of the “pac man” a chicken dumplings, with mushroom and a duck gyoza.
Service was very slow to begin with. The head waiter apologised for the delay due to a technical problem – just before we got irritated. In recompense he provided a tray of three vegetables, which were very tasty and didn’t charge us for the gyoza.
Wine wasn’t cheap either - £29 for a standard Chenin Blanc. The total of £136 (incl 12.5% ) was more than you would expect for an average Chinese dim sum – but then it was definitely well above average. OK for small groups – not really a party destination.
We’ve been to this Thai restaurant on the river in Kingston before – in the summer when you could sit outside. Despite this remarkable February weather, this time we are inside in a very busy space. We are offered one table close to a group of little kids, so decide instead to sit between two other tables, both of which were finishing up anyway.
Although the restaurant is busy, the service is good enough to get a wine order (Chenin Blanc at £22) in quickly, along with some Thai prawn crackers – so much better than the Chinese ones.
We share a Thai calamari to start – their “signature” dish with ginger and green peppercorns. It is remarkable, nothing like I’ve had before. The calamari is cooked just short of rubbery (no batter), and the sauce a mouthful of flavour. The peppercorns are on little stalks, infusing the whole thing. Top marks.
There are several main courses that sound very interesting, but in the end we go with chilli prawns and tamarind duck (which comes with rice) plus a “sweet and sour” cucumber salad. The prawns have a serious kick and good flavour. The duck (which requires proper sharp knives to deal with) is also an impressive dish. The only low note is the salad, which has far more lettuce and leaves and not enough cucumber for our taste.
With the usual 12.5% service (pretty much deserved) and a second bottle of wine, the bill comes to £97 – I’m pleased with that, it’s very good value.
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