Japanese in Soho

 We've arranged to meet up with T&K for lunch and decided upon Robata, a Japanese in Old Compton Street. It features grills as much as sushi, to suits us better.  Then a tube strike is announced, so we decide instead go to La Gamba, as it's within reach of Waterloo.  But the strike is called off, so we revert to Plan A.

We meet for a drink beforehand at the French House just round the corner. This throw-back place is full of character and charm - but for its prices, where anything other than the house wine is £36 a bottle.

The style of the restaurant is modern cafe, with lots of stools and high tables. Fortunately, our table is not one of those. There's a rather odd motto in neon on the wall, something like "I used to love you but now I love sake". 

The staff are friendly and smiley. We order the Chilean SB (£30), which is delivered promptly. We also order a dish of spicy edamame beans (other options are available) while we select from the lengthy menu. This is amazing - not just a few sprinkles of chilli on top, but a deep and dense sauce that really sets your a-tingling. A very good omen of what it to come. 

We choose from the menu divided into raws and sushi; small plates; robata skewers (oddly priced by the piece, but with a minimum of 2); bao buns; and robata large. There are sides and rice, but we decide against these, though the truffle fries did get some attention. 

Soft shell crab (always a favourite) features as a sushi roll or bao bun - we settle on the former, as we will have a beef brisket bun as well.   We have the tuna tartare and beef tataki off this list too.  The soft shell crab roll was good - not as good as a whole crab - the beef came with an interesting sauce, but I thought the tuna was a little dull. 

The karaage - now our favourite Japanese chicken dish - was good and hot, with a moderately spicy sauce - maybe not quite as good as the one in Yatay in Wardour Street we had some time ago but pretty acceptable. We had two types of gyozas - pork and kimchi - the latter also having a kick. 

For skewers we had the scallops (nicely judged, moist but with a crispiness) and the lamb breast (fatty, but very tasty).  And we also plumped for the signature dish of Iberico pork pluma as a "large plate". B had her eye on this from the start - and it was indeed excellent, moist, tender, full of flavour. 

After all this, we decide we haven't had quite enough, so order a prawn tempura roll (which as a sushi roll was not quite what B had expected) and chicken thigh skewer, which was rich and dense. 

With three bottles of wine, and 12.5% service the total comes to £280.  So it's not a cheap option, despite its low-key decor. But the flavours and quality do make it feel like a reasonable price. WE'd go back and happily recommend it to others. 

Surbiton Japanese and Kingston Turkish

 We've now been a few times to The Boat, a Japanese place near Surbiton station. It's little more than a cafe in some ways, but quite attractive in its way. It's become a regular choice after the farmer's market. The walls are decorated with boat-related images, though some are more Nelson-era ships. 

It describes itself as a Sushi and Ramen restaurant, but it does some other things too that they call "kitchen dishes", which is what we have tended to go for.  Typically we order edamame beans, but often choose the seaweed salad instead - this features two types of seaweed, and is very mild. 

Pretty regularly now we go for the karaage, deep-fried chicken served with a spiced-up salad cream. A recent favourite too is prawn katsu, prawns in breadcrumbs with a strange dense soy sauce. This latest time we also had the chicken gyoza and yellowtail tuna. We've recently taken to also ordering an inside out roll dish (rice stuffed with avocado and something) of some kind - soft-shell crab, spicy tuna, or on this latest visit beef. We don't really need it and often end up taking much of it away. The beef was a bit of an odd mix with the other dishes. There is a range of other sushi, nigri and sashimi, but we don't always go for those - the sushi sashimi sets look good though. 

Our wine choice is the Secretary Bird SB from SA at £22.  The staff are very friendly and chatty, and the light jazz background very pleasant. Total of around £75 without service (they prefer cash). Maybe not worth a visit across London in itself, but worth looking up if you're in the area.

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Another local we've now tried a couple of times is Cappadocia, near Kingston station. The Turkish restaurant is a pretty big place, with a take-away joined on. Maybe good for groups. Lots of Turkish-looking people in on both occasions. 

On both occasions we've had the lamb's liver and the acili ezme (a spicy salad) as starters. The liver is very good, dry and tasty; the salad a huge hit of chilli if you're not careful. The first time we tried the Bolu Manti,  meat stuffed dumplings with yoghurt. We were expecting something like a dim sum dumpling, but they were much smaller, so the ratio of meat to dough wrapper much less. OK, but rather heavy without a lot of flavour. This last time we had tiger prawns with garlic instead,

The first time I had the special flamed beef stew  - Testi - as a main. Elaborately presented in a clay pot on a  bed of flaming stones it looks pretty sensational. But the flaming is pointless - it is just a beef stew with red wine, a good sized portion but nothing special. That time B had the prawns as a main course, large ain a good sauce. 

On our second visit B chose the diced lamb on aubergine puree and garlic yoghurt. She found that rather too smoky for her taste.  My diced chicken breast with ginger was better, a thick almost curry-like sauce and good moist meat.  Portions are generally large. They do a range of kebabs as you'd expect and the mixed grill is huge.

Both times we had a bottle of French Viognier at £25. The first time we ordered a second bottle, but they didn't have another so proposed substituting a Chardonnay from the same vineyard - we had a Sauvignon instead. The second time, it was just a couple of glasses of house white.

Service was efficient, fairly friendly head waiter the first time, rather cold chap the second. The first time we had a 20% off food voucher and the bill was £114; the second time without it came to £110.