Catching up – Dec/Jan
Meeting up with S, he chooses the one Italian option as
opposed to four French ones. This is Caraffini on Lower Sloane Street. There
is an outside terrace, but that’s not suitable in December.
Inside is pretty much full. We get directed to a table,
crammed in by a wine bucket, already full of other people’s wine. B complains,
and reluctantly they do move it further away. And also we get our own wine
bucket on the table for the Grillo at £38!
We say yes bread and olives, and then move on to starters. S
has sardines, which look good; B has some odd pork rolls and I have prawns in
garlic and chilli. For mains S has a very pink calves liver, B has scampi with
asparagus, and I have lemon veal.
We go for some desserts – S had panna cotto and I have
sgroppino (lemon sorbet, vodka and champagne).
Service has been good after the
initial contretemps. As well as a second bottle of Grillo, we also a Barbera d’Alba
at £48. 12.5% service takes to £340, but it has all been good.
We are staying at a hotel near St Pancras before an early
start on a train to Bruges for Christmas. Having looked at the options, we
settle on Supawan, a Thai place on the
Caledonian Road. It’s pretty busy, so we get put into a smallish table sitting
at 90 degrees. The décor is very unusual – not cliché Thai.
We order some prawn crackers while we order (large portion),
along with Viognier at £35. For starters, we have grilled prawns on Betel
leaves, with loads of tasty trimmings, ordering the extra portion as suggested
to take it to two each. Excellent. Along with the inevitable soft-shell crab,
quite meaty.
Main courses are stir-fried king prawns with lemongrass and
garlic, and a spicy minced chicken dish, supported by a mound of jasmine rice.
All very good, with friendly service, but the prices did
mount up. With a second bottle and 12.5% service we get up to £170, which seems
a lot for a Thai.
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We meet up with E and J in Covent Garden for a visit to SushiSamba,
and start off with edamame beans. The wine list escalates alarmingly – I manage
to find a Verminto for £49. We have a round of jumbo prawns, tuna ceviche, and soft shell crab roll. The J wants to
order the trio of meats - rib-eye, chorizo, filet mignon – “Churrasco del Rio
Grande”. E has the mushroom dish.
We later have a bottle
of red chosen by J who is insisting on paying, so I don’t know how much the
bill came to – it won’t have been cheap.
Before heading off to Paris for a few days, we treat
ourselves to a late lunch at Mem’s,
our newish place locally. They do a 2 course fixed price lunch for £43, which
like its predecessor has a limited range of dishes.
We’re offered canape drinks and an amuse bouche, both very
nice. Their house Chenin Blanc is a very reasonable £28 a bottle.
I have the duck rillette (solid) and treat myself to a surf
and turf for a £15 supplement. The “surf” is two large tiger prawns. B has Bluefin Tuna tartare followed by
venison loin.
I have a couple of glasses of Malbec (not so reasonable at
£15 each), while B has another glass of Chenin.
All in all, £190 including 12.5%
service, which has been fine – we are the only ones in there most of the time.
Meeting up with P&M. P wanted to go to the new Battersea
Power station complex, so after some research we settled on Brindisa. It’s not
as attractive a venue as the one in Richmond, though sitting outside in the
summer it might be better.
We are there first, so get the better view. We order a white
Rioja (Veltiver) for £36, which goes down well. B and I order the garlic
prawns, chicken with mojo rojo (a red sauce from the Canaries), chorizo on
toast with pepper and rocket (excellent) and Iberico pork cheeks with chocolate
and rioja (very tender, but got cold quickly). P&M add more prawns,
tortilla and patatas bravas. We also have bread.
We move on to a couple of desserts. P has the ice cream,
while I go for the almond tart.
Four bottles in all, a slightly
cheeky 13.5% service (it’s not been great) and that takes us just shy of £300
for the four of us. Not expensive, but I wouldn’t recommend it.
Before the theatre, we’ve chosen a Vietnamese place in
Garrick Street called Com Viet. It’s
nearly full on the ground floor, but we get a table by the window. There is a
larger room downstairs, but they were still turning people away.
For starters we have soft shell crab (OK) and something
called Com Viet Cha. This is minced pork and prawns, with mint and coriander
leaves, that you wrap in dipped rice paper, which resembles a condom. Very
messy, but the fresh herbs make it very tasty.
Mains are stewed pork belly (rather fatty to my taste, but B
likes it) and wok-tossed duck breast with lemongrass and chilli. There a lot of
wok-tossed options, a few seabass ones and not much else to choose from.
We have a bottle and two glasses of NZ SB (£51 together) –
total £115 with 12.5% service.
B was pleased with it, but I thought the pork was a
downside.
