It’s been a busy month so far, and there’s more to come,
with visits to Chez Bruce and The French Table planned. Mainly places we’ve been
to before – oldies but goldies – so just brief update reports.
As they have a £25-off offer on in January, we go along to
Spitalfields for B’s birthday for a late lunch. There are not many people in, and those that
are generally leave fairly soon after, so there’s not a lot of atmosphere. One
stalwart table orders more wine, then desserts and brandies, so we are not
entirely alone.
We have shrimp pepper fry and chicken leg tikka to start.
The chicken is very dense and almost gamey – very good indeed. The shrimp are
more prawn-sized, and quite spicy. For
mains we have Tanjore prawns and, to B’s disgust, Chettinadu-style mutton
curry. But in fact the mutton is rich
and tasty, and probably nicer than the rather predictable prawns. The prawns
came with rice, so we just order one garlic naan, and inevitably the black
lentils.
With two bottles of Trebbiano – practically the cheapest on
the list at £28 each – the total is £120, but with £25 off comes to £95. Good value definitely – the offer is on until
the end of the month.
The team is celebrating a successful workshop last year, so
we treat ourselves to lunch in Oxford.
There are five of us, and we get a nice table overlooking the river
which is bathed in sunshine. The
restaurant is quite busy, but the staff are attentive and helpful – and very
French.
There is a set lunch menu, but only one of our number goes
for that, choosing a big hunk of salt beef brisket as his main. The other four
of us all have confit of duck leg with cassoulet for our main course. It’s a large portion – must have been big
ducks! – two people ask to take away what they couldn’t eat. The meat falls
away from the bone very easily, and the cassoulet is warming, though rather
salty. I had had rillettes of pork to start – very firm meat, but not a lot of
flavour. Other choices included partridge scotch egg, and haddock and octopus
terrine.
D chooses a Duoro red (Touriga National) at £29.50 – which lasts
us all lunch (two people were driving, but even so!). So the bill works out at £36 a head. It’s a lovely place, and overall the food was
pretty good, but not exemplary.
Eleven of us are meeting up because our friend B2 has come
down from Wigan to watch the Orient. So
we have booked into the large space of Dim T in Wilton Road,
Victoria. We’ve settled in, got our wine,
and are just deciding what to have when the fire alarm goes off. It’s very loud,
making conversation almost impossible. The lead waiter tries to do something to
shut it off, but can’t. Eventually our
waiter comes over and explains the alarm has been set off in one of the flats
above us, and so for safety reasons the gas in the restaurant’s kitchen has
been automatically turned off. All they
can do is salads! And we’d have to live with the noise.
So we decide to go somewhere else, and luckily we can fit in
to two adjoining tables at Rosa’s Thai just along the road. This has a simple café vibe but the
waitresses are helpful. The menu is very extensive, with a separate regional
menu (Isaan, from North-East Thailand), and a couple of vegan specials. We have 50/50 prawn and pumpkin crackers
while we decide. After much deliberation, I have prawn tom yum soup to start. This
has six large prawns in it, and is a really spicy broth. B (on the other table)
has deep-fried crispy prawns – five very large prawns. Starters generally are large.
For main course I have spicy pork off the Isaan menu, and
share some brown rice. This is marked
with two chillies on the menu (max is three) and it is certainly hot. It looks
a smallish portion when it arrives, but in fact I can’t eat it all. The pork is
a little tough, but the dish is very tasty.
B had the spicy steak salad (also two chillies) which she enjoys.
We ordered a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc at each table along
with some Thai beers (including their own-label “Thai PA”). When we come to order more wine, the SB has
run out, so we have Viognier. That too
runs out, so finally we have the Spanish house wine. The bill comes to £43 a head including
service (plus £5 a head for drinks in Dim T). A more than acceptable substitute that everyone
enjoyed.
I’ve arranged an afternoon meeting at the Oval, so decide to
go along earlier and have lunch nearby at a rather quirky pub on Kennington
Park Road, just two minutes from Oval tube.
It’s a little hard to describe – it has two oriental style fans on the
ceiling, six leaf-shaped, bamboo “blades” each, gently wafting back and forth;
it has a traditional old-style juke box (I don’t know if it works), though
Miles Davis is playing on the sound system; there is a big clown-like mask behind
the bar; mis-matched tables and chairs, including a child’s set with mushrooms
as seats.
The menu is unusual too. There is an all-day breakfast and a
cobb salad with chicken and avocado, but they are the only typical pub dishes.
Otherwise the choices are noodles or poke bowls (rice dishes) - I choose the
spicy tuna poke bowl. It’s a large bowl,
with plenty of tuna, about a quarter of an avocado, edamame beans, coleslaw and
tons of rice which I can’t finish. The tuna is nearly raw, but not that
spicy. With two glasses of SB, this
comes to just over £20. Worth a visit
for the setting alone.
We’ve been out and about locally too.
The Argentinian Los 4 Locos is always reliable. I have their “gourmet
special” menu choosing empanadas and a chicken milanesa. B has her usual rib-eye
with (runny) fried eggs. Both are big
portions and we take half way. We have one bottle, then two glasses of their
lovely, velvety Tapiz Malbec (that’s £31 + £22). For some reason they are doing
a 10% discount deal, that save us nearly £10, making the final total with
service about £95.
We’ve been a couple of times to Tulsi, the quite up-class
(for Purley) Indian. The first time we have the usual king prawn dish, but also
try a lamb jalfrezi. This is pretty spicy. On the second visit, I try a paneer
starter (not a great success) and a lamb rogan josh, while B and K have two
different chicken tikka dishes. Both times – as always – the portions are so
large we take half away.
And of course there is the always reliable Las
Fuentes tapas bar. Old favourites are the wild boar skewer, gambas pil pil, and kidneys;
newer choices are monkfish and prawns croquettes and minced beef “patties” (a
bit like empanadas). Typically if we
have two bottles of Rioja, it comes to about £75 (only 10% service charge).
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